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ISRAEL'S FAITH 



A Series of Lessons 

FOR. THE 

Jewish Youth 

Adapted from N, S. JOSEPH'S 
** Religion, Natural and Revealed** 




BLOCH PUBLISHING CO. 

NEW YORK 9 9 NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FIVE 




Class 
Book 



tl f^ 



. .) ( 



Copyright N". 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr 



A SERIES OF LESSONS 
FOR THE JEWISH YOUTH 



Adapted from N^ S.' Joseph's 
** Religion, Natural and Revealed'* 




BLOCH PUBLISHING CO. 

NEW YORK :: NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FIVE 



-Sl^Jr 



OCT 4 I9U5 




OOFY 



Copyright, 1905, 

BY 

Block Publishing Co. 

New York 



EDITOR'S NOTE. 

In 1879 ^^* ^' ^- Joseph, of London, published, 
under the title ''Religion, Natural and Revealed: A 
Series of Progressive Lessons for Jewish Youth," an 
instructive guide-book of the tenets and principles of 
the Jewish Faith. Its popularity has been so well 
sustained in England that the present pubHshers, who 
have long been in quest of an adequate presentation 
of the teachings of Judaism for young readers, de- 
cided to reissue the book with such changes and mod- 
ifications as were deemed necessary. Accordingly, the 
editor, to whom the delicate task of revision and 
adaptation was intrusted, undertook to prepare, for 
young American readers, an abridgment of the original 
work, which still remains, despite the rather voluminous 
literature on the subject, the only text-book in EngHsh 
fit to be placed in the hands of students. Much has 
been eliminated, no doubt, which is useful and even 
valuable to the advanced student, but great care has 
been taken to omit nothing likely to impair unity of 
thought or to affect lucidity of expression. 

Both the style and the subject-matter will be found 
to be admirably graded, so as to suit the comprehen- 
sion of the very young, as well as the growing in- 
telligence of maturer minds. Altogether, it is a work 
of surpassing merit, and the publishers have done well 
in bringing it out in its present form, designed to meet 
the needs of Jewish children in progressive religious 
schools, where the study of the Jewish religion should 
be accorded a foremost place in the curriculum. 

George Alexander Kohut. 

New York, September i, 1905. 
iii 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
PART I 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Existence of a God ....... i 

II. The Unity of God lo 

III. What we Know about God 22 

IV. More about God 30 

V. Man and his Position 35 

VI. Reward and Punishment 43 

PART 11. 

I. How Religion was Revealed 47 

II. The Ten Commandments 53 

III. The Law of Moses 64 

IV. Sacrifice and Prayer . 68 

V. Sabbaths and Festivals 78 

VI. The New Year's Day and Day of Atone- 
ment 88 

VII. Social Duties 94 

VIII. Moral Duties 113 

IX. Sanitary Laws 131 

X. Fasts and Feasts 143 

XI. The Future Life 151 

V 



ISRAEL'S FAITH. 
PART I. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 

Everything in the world must have had a maker. 
You cannot imagine it possible that anything, how- 
ever simple, made itself. 

If I showed you a piece of stone, and told you that 
the stone made itself, you would laugh, and tell me that 
you could not believe such nonsense. And you would 
be quite right. You would tell me that the stone had 
no power to move, or to think, or to do anything — 
much less to make itself. 

And if I showed you a plant, with some pretty flow- 
ers growing on it, and I told you that the plant made 
itself, you would laugh still more, and would say that 
you knew better. You would tell me, perhaps, that the 
plant had grown from a little seed, and that the little 
seed had come from another plant, just like the plant I 
was showing you, and that the first seed that ever be- 
came a plant, could never have been clever enough to 
make itself in such a wonderful way that the seed 



2 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

should bring forth a plant, and the plant a flower, and 
the flower a seed, and the new seed a plant again, and 
so on, year after year, till now. 

And if I showed you an animal — say a bird — and 
told you that the bird made itself, you would laugh at 
me again. You would say that the first bird could never 
have been clever enough to make itself in such a won- 
derful way; and that if the bird had made itself, it 
would have been clever enough to keep itself alive for- 
ever, which we know no animal can do. And of course 
you would be right. 

But, suppose some one told you that all the world, 
as you see it, came by chance — that the mountains and 
valleys, the beautiful trees, and the sweet-smeUing 
flowers, the beasts of the field, and men and women, 
and you too, all came by chance, you would think this 
idea still more laughable. You would say that chance 
never did anything in quite so orderly a fashion. You 
would call to mind that when you upset your box of 
toys by accident or by chance, the toys tumbled out in 
the greatest disorder, and you would have been very 
much astonished if it had been otherwise, for the things 
you see in the world are very regular and very orderly. 

You never saw trees grow upside down, or the sun 
shine in the middle of the night, or anything heavy 
refuse to fall to the ground — all which might happen, 
ij things were arranged by chance. 

All the things we see around us on this beautiful 
Earth seem to be arranged for one design or purpose, 
for the good of every hving being, and above all, of 



THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 3 

man. And we know very well that if there is a design 
or purpose in anything, that thing cannot be said to 
be the work of chance, but must have had some one to 
design it. 

I dare say you have, at some time or other, seen a 
steam-engine, and have thought it a very wonderful 
thing. Even if you look at it from a distance, as it 
almost flies along the iron rails, dragging after it cars 
piled with goods, or full of people, it seems a Hving 
wonder. But if you walk close up to it, while it is 
standing still, you will think it yet more wonderful. 
For you will see that it is made up of an enormous 
number of parts, some very strong, and some very deh- 
cate; and if you ask how many pieces there are in it, 
you will be told that there are nearly four thousand, 
and that each one of those four thousand pieces is nec- 
essary to make the great giant move. And then you 
will think to yourself how clever the men must be who 
could make such a wonderful machine. 

And if any one were to tell you that the steam-engine 
came together by chance, or that it was not made by 
an intelHgent or clever maker, you would tell him he 
was a stupid fellow to talk such nonsense. You would 
say: "I see here four thousand pieces of metal of dif- 
ferent shapes and kinds, some large and some small, 
fitting into one another exactly. They could not pos- 
sibly have come together by chance; there is design or 
intention in their being so put together as to enable the 
machine to move; consequently there must have been 
somebody to design and plan it, and that person, who- 



4 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

ever he was, we call the maker of the engine, without 
whom that engine would never have been made." This 
would be a very sensible answer. 

But now I am going to talk of engines much more 
wonderful than the steam-engine. Perhaps you may 
look at them with less wonder, because they make less 
noise; but if you observe them attentively, you will see 
in them even more to admire. The more you look, the 
more is there to be seen ; and though, unlike the steam- 
engine, you will not find the maker's name written in 
letters of brass upon them, you will not be slow to find 
out who was the maker. 

The sun, the moon, the stars, and the Earth on which 
we live are even more wonderful engines. And I call 
them engines, because they are known to move, to be 
always moving; not hke the steam-engine, by fits and 
starts, when water is poured in and heat applied; but 
ever moving, ever working, never stopping to take rest, 
never even slackening speed for an instant. 

Then, too, there are engines on the Earth itself, 
which we may examine more closely than we can the 
sun, moon, and stars — they are the animals that Hve on 
this Earth. Yes; these, too, are engines, and many of 
them have more parts than the steam-engine itself, and 
these parts are much less hkely to get out of order, and 
they need fuel or food less frequently, and they are 
capable of repairing themselves over and over again, 
when they wear out or get damaged, till they get so old 
that there is hardly anything left worth repairing. 

Let us take one of these living engines as an exam- 



THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 5 

pie, one with which you are better acquainted than any 
other; nsimdy— yourself. 

You will remember that the steam-engine is a run- 
ning-machine. It moves, and drags a train after it; 
but it can do nothing else. You, however, are some- 
thing more. You are a reading and writing machine, 
a tasting and smelUng machine, a seeing and feeling 
machine, a hearing and talking machine; but the 
greatest wonder of all is that this machinery of yours is 
under the control or management of a something within 
you, which you cannot see, and which is called the Willj 
and that this Will is guided by another unseen some- 
thing within you, which we call Reason. 

But as we can see neither the Will nor the Reason, 
we will let them alone for the present, and talk about 
the machinery only. 

Look at your hand. How wisely it is fitted for its 
purpose! It can carry a heavy load of books, and it 
can thread the finest needle with the finest thread. It 
can hurl a baseball a very long way, and it can make 
the thinnest up-stroke with the finest pen. It can 
throw; it can carry; it can pull; it can push; it can 
lift; it can crush; it can bind; it can loosen. Look at 
that great stout workman. He has just been Hfting a 
hundred- weight of grain with his brawny hands ! Look 
at him now. He is using the same hand to take out a 
little particle of dust that has been blown into his fel- 
low-workman's eye! 

I called you just now an engine. I think I must 
have been wrong. Why, your hand alone is a hundred 



ISRAEL'S FAITH. 



engines all put together; for it can do a hundred dif- 
ferent things, and many quite opposite things. 

Just look at your hand, and ask yourself if you think 
it became a part of your body by chance, or without 
design or intention. Of course you will reply, that it 
was designed for the express purpose of doing all the 
things which we see it doing, just as the steam-engine 
was designed for the express purpose of moving and 
dragging. Therefore, we cannot help saying at least 
the same of the hand as we said of the steam-engine, 
that the hand must have had a very clever maker; and 
I think you would feel incHned to add that, as the hand 
is so much more wonderful than the steam-engine, and 
as no man, however clever, can make a true imitation 
of a hand with all its powers and movements, the 
maker of the hand must be far more clever than he who 
invented or made the steam-engine. 

Now the hand is only one part of you. There are 
hundreds of other parts of the body quite as wonder- 
ful; and the more you look into these matters, the more 
you will see to admire, and the more certain you will 
become that the maker of all these wonderful contriv- 
ances of your body must be a Being of mighty skill. 

But there are other animals which, so far as their 
bodies are concerned, are quite as wonderful. There 
is the elephant; for example, he has a trunk which can 
tear up a huge tree and can also pick up a pin. There 
is the camel, too, vnth an extra stomach, capable of 
holding enough spare water to enable him to travel a 
long distance, in the desert, without drinking. 



THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 7 

There is not an animal that can be named, whose 
body is not truly wonderful in every point of its struc- 
ture. And then, if we look more closely into the pecul- 
iarities and habits of each animal, we shall find how 
beautifully the body of each is suited to the cHmate in 
which it is to live: how some are clothed with fur, 
others with wool, others with bristles, according to the 
heat or cold to which each is Hkely to be subject. 

Then, also, we see how wonderfully it is provided for 
that life should be preserved as long as possible. For 
example, v/e know that all animals are liable to acci- 
dental injuries, and that they would soon die if those 
injuries were not repaired. But we see that the animal 
has in itself the materials for its own cure. If part of a 
steam-engine be broken or damaged, engineers must 
come with tools to mend it. The engine cannot mend 
itself. But animals are machines that can and do mend 
themselves. If the skin be broken in a Hving animal, 
or the flesh torn, there is a substance produced by the 
wound itself which heals it. Even if the bone of a liv- 
ing animal be broken, the broken edges give forth a 
Hquid which soon hardens into solid bone, making the 
broken parts, if placed together, stick to one another, 
and form one sound bone again. 

Wherever we look we find something to admire, 
something to wonder at. I do not mean to say that we 
can always tell the design or object or use of everything, 
when we see it. But that is caused by our ignorance. 
At one time, people were much puzzled to know what 
could be the use of certain poisonous plants; but now 



8 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

they have found out that these plants which destroy 
Hfe may, if used in a particular way and in very small 
quantities, serve as medicines to cure disease and so 
preserve Hfe. And thus it may be with many other 
poisons and many other things whose object we cannot 
at present understand. Perhaps, when the world be- 
comes wiser, we shall know all about them too. 

And, after all, those things which puzzle us are not 
the greatest or the most important points in the uni- 
verse. The things we see every day are the greatest 
wonders. Sunrise and sunset, rain and snow, wind 
and hail, the change of the seasons, the growth of 
plants, and animals — Hfeless seeds becoming Hving 
flowers; Hfeless eggs becoming Hving birds; Hfe every- 
where, in the sea, in the fields, in the rivers, in the for- 
ests, in the air; Hving things made to last tiU their 
place is taken by other Hving things Hke themselves; 
and every one of these Hving things fuU of machinery 
which seems perfection — these are wonders indeed! 

If the steam-engine must have had such a very clever 
maker, what shall we say of the World ? 

Do you know that, when I ask myself that question, 
I begin to have quite a poor opinion of the steam- 
engine ? For I never knew a steam-engine to lay eggs, 
and bring forth a brood of Httle steam-engines, Hke 
yonder fine old hen with her large family of chickens. 
Nor did I ever know a steam-engine that was capable 
of doing anything else than move; nor did I ever know 
a steam-engine that was out of order, get itself in 
order again, without being doctored by an engineer. 



THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 9 

And still the steam-engine is a very wonderful thing, 
and must have had a very clever maker. 

Well, what shall we say of the World ? 

I am sure you will come to the conclusion, that the 
World and its contents must have had a maker pos- 
sessed of an intelligence, power, and cleverness, to 
which the intelligence, power, and cleverness of the 
engine-maker cannot bear the least comparison. 

This great and wonderful Maker of the World and 
its contents we call God; and what I have tried to 
prove to you is the existence of a god, who designed 
and created the World. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE UNITY OF GOD. 



Perhaps you may ask, How am I to know that the 
world had only one Maker? How am I to know that 
there is only one God ? 

You might point to the steam-engine and tell me it 
was made by several makers, and then argue that each 
wonder of the World might have had a separate maker. 

You would not be the first person to reason in this 
way. Indeed, in olden times, there were several nations 
who believed in almost any number of gods. 

I am going to prove to you that these people were 
very foolish, and that it is right and reasonable to be- 
Heve that there is only one God, the Creator of the 
whole World and of everything therein. This is what 
is meant by the Unity, or oneness of God. 

Let us take another look at the steam-engine. Now, 
it is certainly true that the engine was made by several 
people; but one man only designed it. That is to say, 
there was one man only, who first made a drawing or 
picture of it before it was begun. And that same man 
it was, who decided how large it should be, and how 
strong it should be, how much weight it should be able 
to drag, how fast it should be able to run, and how 



THE UNITY OF GOD. II 

large and how small every one of the four thousand 
pieces of metal should be. And all the men who were 
employed in making the engine were just like so many 
machines, obeying the orders of the master engineer, 
not daring to disobey, but following exactly the picture 
or design he had set before them. 

It was only by this strict obedience that the engine 
could ever have been finished, and turn out to be a 
moving machine; for if one of the workmen took it 
into his head to make one of the parts larger or smaller 
than was intended by the master engineer, the engine 
would have turned out weak or unruly, or, perhaps, 
would never have been able to move at all. 

So you see, after all, the whole engine might be said 
to be the work of one man; for, in making it, the 
common workmen, who put it together, had no more 
to do with the design or intention than the miners who 
dug out of the earth the metals of which it was made. 

Indeed, if we look at the finished steam-engine, we 
shall at once see that one man only must have had the 
arrangement of it. If it were not so, the enormous 
number of parts would not fit into one another so 
exactly. 

It is this exact fitting of the various parts, all point- 
ing to one object or intention, which makes us feel sure 
that, however many hands put the engine together, one 
master-mind designed or arranged it. 

Now, if I can show you that the Earth, nay, that the 
whole World is, in this respect, just like the steam- 
engine, that every little or great part exactly fits into 



12 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

some other part, and that each part, as well as the whole 
which is made up of the parts, points to one great 
object or design, you will believe that, no matter how 
many powers may have been used in making the great 
World, there was only one Gody who was the Master- 
engineer of the World, who designed, ordained, ar- 
ranged, and regulated it all. 

Let us begin with the Earth itself. What do we find 
therein? We find coal in abundance, to warm our 
homes and cook our food; then iron, the material of all 
those tools with which we till the ground, make our 
clothing, our furniture, indeed, everything that has to 
be shaped ; the stone to build our houses, and lime and 
sand, to join the stone together; and then, not the least 
of the treasures of the earth, we find springs of pure 
v/ater bursting out of the hard rocks, flowing in little 
streams, and swelling into large rivers, always ready 
and at hand to quench our thirst. All for the good oj 
the inhabitants oj this Earth. 

Then let us consider the Sea. It is the great cistern, 
from which the sun and air draw up moisture. The 
moisture collects into clouds, the clouds fall in refresh- 
ing showers of rain upon the fields and forests, making 
the earth bring forth corn, and fruit, and flowers in 
abundance. And then the surplus water runs into rills, 
and the rills run into ditches, and the ditches into 
brooks, and the brooks into rivers, and the rivers into 
the sea; and so the water which came from the sea 
returns to the sea, completing its circle of usefulness, 
and ready to begin anew a like circle of silent, useful 



THE UNITY OF GOD. I3 

work; and all for the good oj the inhabitants 0} this 
Earth. 

Next, let us consider the living things that swarm in 
the sea. There are shoals of fishes which yield food, 
sea-monsters which yield oil, and sea- weeds which 
manure the fields near the sea-coasts; all for the good 
of the inhabitants oj this Earth. 

Then let us consider the Air. How wonderfully it is 
arranged ! We are always breathing a part of it ; so, too, 
are the plants. Now you might think that, in the course 
of time, all the air would be spent, or would become im- 
pure, through so many plants and animals breathing 
it; and so it would, but for the wise forethought of 
God. 

The air, which you cannot see, and which you only 
feel when it blows against your face, is made up of sev- 
eral different kinds of gas or air, mixed together. One 
of these gases (oxygen) animals inhale or breathe in, 
and, when it has passed through their lungs, they breathe 
it out again. It is then found to be entirely changed, 
and to be exactly hke another part of the air (carbonic 
acid gas) which the plants breathe. And so, you see, 
the animals breathe out the very kind of air which the 
plants require. 

But this is not all. This (carbonic acid) gas, which 
the plants and trees breathe, also becomes changed, in 
passing through them, and, when they breathe it out, 
it is changed back again into oxygen — the very kind of 
air that we and all animals require. It cannot matter 
how many animals there are upon the earth to be sup- 



14 ISRAELIS FAITH. 

plied with air. For, however impure they make it, the 
plants and trees are quite sure to set it right again. 

Surely such a fact as this is quite enough to show that 
the animals, the plants, and the air they breathe, must 
have had one and the same Maker. For how could we 
imagine it possible that the animals were made by one 
maker, the plants by another, and the air they breathe 
by a third, and yet that this wonderful arrangement 
could exist ? 

Another great fact in nature, which I shall proceed 
to explain, is that there is no waste. 

If you inquire into the cause of this, you will find 
how it is that there is no waste. You will see that ani- 
mals, plants, and even hfeless things, have a way of 
changing places one with the other. For example: 

Suppose we sow some beans; the rain moistens 
them; in course of time, they will sprout. There is 
something in the seed which we call life (but which we 
do not at all understand), giving it the power of breath- 
ing the air, of drinking the water, and of feeding in the 
lifeless earth. 

And so the seed grows into a plant. It becomes 
larger and larger. At last, it flowers; then the flowers 
drop off, and gradually the beans appear in their stead. 
A stem, a root, a number of leaves, a flower, and a 
quantity of beans, seem all to have come from a simple 
seed. But they have really come from many things 
besides the seed. Something has come out of the earth, 
and something out of the air, and these somethings, 
which were before lifeless, have mixed with the little 



THE UNITY OF GOD. 1 5 

seed, and become part of the living plant. How, we do 
not know, and perhaps never shall. 

Now, what becomes of the plant? Let us watch 
and find out. Suppose a horse eats the beans. The 
beans will become part of his flesh and blood, and 
muscles and bones, and so such part of the plant, as 
is useful for food, becomes part of an animal. As for 
the remainder, it is not wasted. The leaves will fade 
and the stalks will wither; but the leaves will crumble 
into dust at last, and become part of the earth again — 
a very fertile part, known as leaf-mould. The stalks 
and roots will do the same, if left to themselves; but 
the farmer will, perhaps, burn them, and use the ashes 
for manure, which brings them to the same useful end ; 
for they become part of the earth again, ready, next 
year, to serve the same useful purpose ; perhaps not as 
part of a crop of beans, but for wheat, or barley, or 
something of that sort. 

And bear this in mind. It is the same earth, the 
same hfeless soil, which becomes part of the beans, or 
part of the wheat, or part of the barley. 

We have seen how the Hfeless earth changes into, 
and forms part of, the Hving plant, and how a portion 
of the Hving plant changes into, and forms parts of, 
the Hving and moving animal. Let us watch the fur- 
ther changes. 

The horse which ate the beans, of course, breathes; 
and we know that part of his food goes to form the air 
which he breathes out. So certain portions of the beans 
go back into the air, which, you will remember^ was part 



l6 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

of the nourishment of the growing bean. And more 
than that, it goes back just in the very state, fit and 
ready for the plants to breathe. 

But what becomes of the horse ? In course of time, 
it will die of old age. Its skin will be used for one pur- 
pose, and its hair for another, and, perhaps, its flesh 
will feed other animals; but its bones will be burned 
and ground for bone-earth, a most valuable manure; 
and such parts of the poor old horse as cannot be turned 
to some profitable purpose, will be buried in the earth, 
becoming dust, very fertile dust, ready, like the bone- 
earth, to grow a crop of beans, or wheat, or barley of 
extra- fine quahty. 

The chain is thus complete between the animal, the 
vegetable, and the mineral creations. 

Does it, then, seem possible that these things had 
more than one Maker? If there were two or more 
makers, would it be Hkely that the work of one would 
exactly fit into the work of the other, in every respect; 
that the object or intention of one would exactly agree 
with the object or intention of another; that the ma- 
terial used by the one would be the same as the material 
used by the other ? 

If there were more than one Maker, would it be 
likely that the earth and all in it would be controlled by 
one never- changing law; that the great planets, which 
twinkle Hke Httle sparks in the sky, would follow the 
same law ("The law of gravitation"); that the animals 
would be so formed that they breathe one air, and the 
plants so formed that they breathe another air; and, 



THE UNITY OF GOD. 1 7 

alDove all, that there would be manifest in all the works 
of creation one main object, namely, the good 0} all liv- 
ing creatures? 

The thing is impossible. There cannot be two or 
more makers. If such a work as the steam-engine re- 
quired one master-mind to design it, what shall we say 
of the world, where we find thousands of objects — 
each more wonderful, more lasting, more perfect, than 
the steam-engine — and all fitting exactly into one an- 
other, and pointing to one object — Lije? 

There can be but one conclusion — that the world 
must have been designed by one Master-Mind; that 
there is but one God, the Creator and Ruler of all things. 

In olden times, there were so many people — and 
some very clever people, too — who beHeved in several 
gods. 

They saw the works of Creation with eyes hke our 
eyes, but not with thoughts like our thoughts. They 
viewed the sun as the source of Hght, which made their 
fields fertile and their gardens gay. They viewed the 
rain as a source of gloom, and as an enemy of the sun, 
because it often spoiled their crops, undoing all the 
good which the sun had wrought. They considered the 
wind as an enemy of the rain, because it dried it up, 
and undid the rain's work. 

So when they saw the different powers of nature fight- 
ing with each other, the one undoing the work of the 
other, they thought each power had a separate god 
which ruled it. 

And this idea they carried still further. They saw 



l8 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

that men were ruled by different virtues and vices. 
One was moved by Revenge, another by Love, another 
by Hatred, another by Ambition, another by Avarice, 
another by Patriotism, another by Philanthropy, and 
so on; and they found such very different results pro- 
duced by these different men, that they imagined the 
various virtues, vices, and passions, which led them or 
drove them on to these different results, must each 
have a different god. 

Besides, they often saw in one and the same man^ 
perhaps in themselves (as we find in ourselves), good 
passions and bad passions, fighting with one another, 
sometimes the one and sometimes the other gaining the 
victory. 

Thus it happened that they had a great number of 
gods; — a god of the sun, a god of the rain, a god of the 
winds, and a god of the waves, and so on. 

No doubt, many of the clever people in those days 
must have thought this absurd; for some of them, in 
their books, made their gods cut a very funny figure, 
representing them as doing all sorts of ungodly things. 
But certainly there were millions who really beheved 
in all these gods. And we must not laugh at them; for 
they knew no better. 

Their idea of a number of gods arose in this way: 
they noticed the sun, and noticed the rain, and no- 
ticed the wind; they saw the effects of each, but did 
not think of the effect of all put together. They saw 
that one power moistened the earth, and the other dried 
it; that one parched the earth, and the other cooled it; 



THE UNITY OF GOD. 1 9 

but they did not see that it was the moistening and dry- 
ing, the parching and cooling, which, all put together, 
made the crops grow. 

So, too, in the affairs of men : they saw the love and 
the hatred, the charity and the revenge, the avarice 
and the ambition, the good and the evil, pulHng differ- 
ent ways ; but they did not see that all these opposites, 
put together, kept the world of men in that state of ac- 
tivity of mind and body which is a necessity of man's 
nature. In a word, they did not look at the world, as 
we have been looking at it, as a whole; and did not 
notice — indeed, did not know — how all these parts 
fitted into each other, and formed the whole. 

But, happily, we know better. We know that these 
powers of Nature, which, by themselves, would produce 
such opposite effects, together balance one another; and 
it is this balance of power^ which affords another proof 
that there is but one Creator and Ruler of the world. 

This idea may be explained by another example 
taken from the affairs of men. We read in the news- 
papers, now and then, about some ambitious nation 
trying to become too strong, or endeavoring to master 
its weaker neighbor. When such things take place, 
the rulers of the other nations step in and say that the 
thing ought not to be, lest it should disturb the "bal- 
ance of power"; in other words, lest the ambitious na- 
tion should become too powerful, and swallow up the 
little nations. Thus the "balance of power" is main- 
tained by one nation watching the other very closely, 
and keeping it in check. 



20 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

But sometimes the ambitious nation says, **I won't 
be kept in check; I will swallow up my weak neighbor." 
And, perhaps, he will pretend that his weak neighbor is 
wicked and barbarous, and deserves to be swallowed 
up; or, perhaps, he will try to show that his weak 
neighbor doesn't mind being swallowed up, and, in- 
deed, rather Hkes it. Then there begins a terrible dis- 
pute, and perhaps the nations come to blows, and there 
is a long and frightful war. Usually the "balance of 
power" is maintained in such a conflict; but some- 
times it ends in the ambitious nation becoming more 
powerful, till it goes on, year after year, greedily adding 
fresh provinces to its empire. Such a state of things 
never lasts, but, while it lasts, it is very inconvenient 
and burdensome. 

But in Nature — that is, in the works of God — it is 
very different. There, the balance of power is quite as 
necessary; for, without it, we should, now and then, 
have all our houses blown down by a hurricane, all our 
fields burned by the sun's heat, or all the inhabitants of 
the earth swept away by a deluge; for the winds, the 
sun, and the rain would be quite strong enough to pro- 
duce such results, ij they were not held in check. 

Yet all the forces of Nature are so nicely balanced 
that, while each performs its work, it works without 
destroying. Now and then, indeed, there are sHght, 
very sHght departures from the balance of power, but 
very soon it restores itself by some convulsion, affecting 
but a small portion of the earth, such as an earthquake, 
a whirlwind, or a thunderstorm. These are often de- 



THE UNITY OF GOD. 21 

structive, but they are, no doubt, for the general good, 
evil though they may appear to be. We see the good of 
a thunderstorm ; perhaps we may, some day, when we 
shall have grown wiser, see the good of an earthquake. 
We are not yet wise enough to know the reason of 
earthquakes. 

The forces of Nature cannot, therefore, have sepa- 
rate and independent rulers, as the kingdoms of the 
earth have. Those forces, pulling in opposite ways, 
and each performing different useful work, still balance 
one another, and balance one another exactly. Hence, 
there must be but One Creator, who made these forces, 
and governs them. 



CHAPTER III. 

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT GOD. 

If you had a friend living a long way off, whom you 
had never seen, but who had always been kind to you, 
paying you attention in various ways, you would, no 
doubt, desire to know all about this unseen friend. You 
would try to do something to please him. You would, 
moreover, try to find some one who had seen this friend, 
so that you might learn all about him ; but if you could 
not discover any person who had seen him, you would 
endeavor to find out his character in another way. You 
would think over all the presents he had sent you, and 
the manner in which they were sent, and the quantity 
in which they were suppHed, and the purpose of each, 
and you would thereby be able to arrive at a pretty 
good guess of what your friend's character was Hke. 

Now you and I have such a friend, and his name is 
God, and I have already shown you that we have only 
one such Friend. Neither you nor I have ever seen 
Him, but we receive presents from Him every day. 

I dare say that you feel that you ought to know some- 
thing about His power. His nature. His character. His 
Ukings, and disHkings. This is what we mean when we 
talk of the attributes of God. 



WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT GOD. 23 

Well, let us see if we can find some of the information 
we want. 

God has given us the earth to Hve upon. What a 
magnificent present! Of how many thousands of pres- 
ents does it consist ! If we Hved hundreds of years, we 
should never be able to count the treasures it contains, 
never grow tired of the beauties it exhibits. 

What a wonderful world it is! There is everything to 
charm the sight. The face of Nature is so fair that we 
never weary of it. The fields and the forests, the 
heavens and their hosts, the glorious sea, all delight our 
senses. 

Think of the flowers, so sweet to the smell, so charm- 
ing to the sight, filHng our houses with fragrance and 
cheerfulness! Think of the food so bountifully sup- 
pHed, and so agreeable to the taste as to render the sat- 
isfying of hunger one of the great pleasures of life! 
Think of the fresh air of Heaven, how balmy it is! 
Think of the joys of the heart and of the soul, the emo- 
tions of love, of gratitude, of hope, and the comfort of 
a good conscience. It is a splendid place, this world of 
ours! 

But now you are reminding me that there are such 
things as disease, want, suffering in many forms, ha- 
tred, crime — many, many shocking things that will 
hardly bear thinking about; that, though the moun- 
tains look so beautiful, there are such things as vol- 
canoes, pouring out destructive fire; that though the 
sea is so grand a sight, there are such things as ship- 
wrecks; that though the birds sing so sweetly, and 



24 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

though their plumage is so lovely, there are such things 
as vultures and eagles who Hve only by the death of 
other animals. 

You are quite right to mention them. We cannot 
shut our eyes to the truth. 

But a Httle thought will help us to explain why there 
is so much evil in the world, as well as good. 

Something within us tells us that there is a world be- 
yond this; that when we die, we shall shall Uve else- 
where, in a happier and a better state. We are taught 
this at home and at school; and to you and me, who 
have learned this from other sources than our own 
thoughts and feeHngs, it may be difficult to think that 
this idea would come into our heads naturally, without 
any teaching. Nevertheless this is true, for the most 
savage nations have the notion of a future Hfe im- 
planted in their breasts, not merely as a hope, but as a 
conviction. 

This world is a place of preparation for the future 
world; here we have to make ourselves fit for the en- 
joyment of everlasting Hfe, and the joys of the next 
world will depend on our conduct in this. Even sav- 
ages think that their heroes who die in battle^ — accord- 
ing to their ideas, the most noble end — will be rewarded 
in the world to come; and even the most uneducated 
himian beings among those we call civilized, have some 
vague idea that their crimes will be punished in a world 
beyond this. 

We, too, though we cannot say why, believe the 
same. 



WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT GOD. 25 

Now let us try to account for the presence of evil by 
a familiar illustration. 

Suppose that, at school, you were not compelled to 
learn, but were allowed to do whatever you liked, so 
that if you felt inclined to talk, or to have a game, or to 
go out for a walk during school hours, you could do so, 
without your master finding fault with you ; would the 
master who so indulged you be really kind ? Silly and 
thoughtless children might perhaps think he was; but 
you know better. You know that you go to school for 
the purpose of learning those things which will be use- 
ful to you when you grow older. If you attend to your 
studies at school, you will get on in the world; you 
will become clever and good, and people will respect 
and love you. 

It is, therefore, the duty of your master to see that 
you do attend to your studies. The good master will 
always do this. Sometimes he will encourage you by 
fair words, by smiles, and by giving you prizes; at 
other times, he may find it necessary to speak angrily 
to you, to frown at you, or to punish you. Now, the 
sensible master, who occasionally frowns and punishes 
you, is your best friend; while the foolish instructor, 
who always indulges your fancies and your frolics, is, 
in fact, your enemy. 

It is, perhaps, difficult for you to see this at the time. 
While you are being punished, you feel angry with your 
teacher, and think him too harsh; but the time will 
come when you will see things in their true light. When 
you have left school, you will feel thankful to him who 



26 ISRAELIS FAITH. 

checked your indolence by wholesome punishment, and 
will despise him who encouraged it by his indulgence. 

Now, if you consider this life as a place of prepara- 
tion for a happier and better life, you must regard the 
world as a school in which your soul is to be educated 
and trained, so as to fit it for a happy destiny in the 
next world. Thus it is that God acts toward us as a 
wise instructor. He calls into activity the noble im- 
pulses of our soul, and checks its evil tendencies. 
Sometimes He causes the light of His countenance to 
shine upon us, showering down blessings upon us, and 
prospering our undertakings; at other times He finds it 
necessary to frown upon us, to disappoint our hopes, 
to afflict us with disease or other misfortunes. But all 
is done for our own eventual good. You may depend 
upon it, that God knows how to teach us the all-im- 
portant lesson, how to prepare for the future life — that 
He knows when to encourage, and when to chasten. 
You may rest assured that it would not be for our ad- 
vantage if we always had things as we would wish 
them to be. 

Even as children sometimes require to be corrected, 
lest they become selfish and wilful, even so do men re- 
quire trials and disappointments to recall them to a 
sense of duty and to improve their soul; and God is 
far too wise and too good a teacher to withhold the 
needful correction. By our very nature we require 
occasional sorrow and suffering. 

But, perhaps, you may ask — Could not God, who 
created us, have so formed us as to have different nat- 



WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT GOD. 27 

ures ? Could He not have made us so naturally inclined 
to do good that we should not have needed correction ? 
Let us look into our own experience for an illustration: 

Suppose that a teacher offered prizes to those of 
his pupils who would answer a number of examina- 
tion-questions. Suppose that, contrary to the usual 
custom, he were to set very simple questions, and (to 
make it a very easy matter to answer them) allowed his 
scholars to refer to as many books as they pleased, and 
even to copy the answers from them. I know what you 
would say to this. You would object to it altogether. 
You would say: — ''I should not care for a prize so 
easily gained. The examination would not prove my 
merit at all. Any dunce could answer as well as I 
could in such circumstances. So I would rather be 
excused from being examined. If I gained the prize, I 
should not deserve it, and so would not value it." 

But just suppose the teacher were to give such ques- 
tions as he thought his pupils ought to be able to an- 
swer, if they had worked hard and used their time well; 
and suppose he left them entirely to their own resources, 
thinking that, with the knowledge he had conveyed to 
them, they ought to be well able to answer even the 
most difficult questions. What would you say then? 
You would say, ''I shall be glad to be examined upon 
these terms. I know I shall have to work hard to de- 
serve the prize; but, if I work hard, I shall gain it. 
Such a prize will be worth having." 

Let us apply this illustration: Life is our school; 
God our great Schoolmaster; everlasting happiness 



28 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

the prize He offers to us, His pupils. If it required no 
exertion on our part to obtain this prize; if hfe offered 
no difficulties and no temptations, so that we could 
hardly help doing goody where would he our merit? Our 
happiness would be marred by the thought that it had 
not been earned by our exertions. Therefore God, in 
His goodness, has ordained it otherwise. Like the wise 
schoolmaster. He has made the examination hard, and 
consequently the prize worth having. He has placed 
difficulties and temptations in our way, that we might 
battle with them and obtain the victory. To some He 
has made life a struggle for existence; but doubtless 
He has made them proportionately strong to enable 
them to carry on the struggle. Every one has his sor- 
rows, his pains, his heart-burnings, his temptations, 
and his difficulties. Even the most favored are not free 
from them. Let us not cry over them. Let us rather 
remember that they are as the difficult examination- 
questions. They are a mark of the goodness of our 
Creator. The evil is there for man to conquer. 

And God has given man the power to conquer it. 
The passions are strong within us; but the will to over- 
come them is stronger. The voice of temptation is 
loud; but the voice of conscience is louder. And so, 
too, in the world of matter: If the enemy be famine, 
man finds some mode of improving the barren ground. 
If it be tempest, he has at hand the means of warding 
it off and protecting himself from its ravages. If it be 
the loss of worldly possessions, he has within himself 
the energy to take heart and to try to replace them. If 



WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT GOD. 29 

it be disease, he finds remedies to fight it, and even to 
prolong the span of life. If it be death, he has it in his 
power so to live as to make death itself but a passing evil 
for a lasting good. 

YeSy there are evils in the world; but they are the 
incentives to our toil. They are the giants with whom 
we have to contend. To conquer them by honest 
strength of purpose, is the aim and end of the great 
battle of Hfe. 

Thus, then, we see how evil tends to our eternal wel- 
fare. 

Shall we fail to acknowledge that the Being who has 
given us such a beautiful place to Hve in, endowed us 
with such powers of enjoying its beauties, mingled good 
and that which seems to us evil, so wisely, so mercifully 
and so kindly, fashioned our body and mind so won- 
derfully, is a Being infinitely good, merciful, and wise ? 



CHAPTER IV. 



MORE ABOUT GOD. 



We have seen that God is good, merciful, and wise. 
But we wish to know still more about Him. 

1. God is Eternal; that is, He always did exist 
and always will exist. How do we know this ? If He 
did not always exist, there must have been some time 
when He was Himself created by some one else; but 
that would be nonsense, for when v/e speak of a Crea- 
tor, we mean a being who was the first cause of every- 
thing. There could not have been a Creator prior to 
the first cause or Creator of All, and, as we cannot im- 
agine a beginning to time, we cannot imagine a begin- 
ning to God. Hence we may declare that God has ex- 
isted forever. 

But how can we tell that God always will exist? 
We can only judge of the future by the past. We can- 
not believe it possible for Time and Creation to come 
to an end, and, while these exist, there must always be 
a Creator to rule and govern the world. 

2. God is Immutable; that is. He never changes. 
How do we know this ? You might argue that since the 
works of the Creator show constant change, the Creator 
Himself must Hkewise be changeable. But this would 
be a false conclusion. 

30 



MORE ABOUT GOD. 31 

It is quite true that we see change everywhere in 
nature. Without it there would be no Hfe. But that 
change is always produced in precisely the same man- 
ner, and always in the same order. 

For instance : If you take a pound of ice, and pour 
boihng water upon it, the ice will melt; and, however 
often you try the experiment, you will find that it will 
always require exactly the same quantity of boiHng 
water to melt the pound of ice. Again, if you mix sand 
and potash in certain fixed proportions and put them 
in a furnace, they will produce the substance we call 
glass; but, unless you keep to those fixed proportions, 
the glass will not be produced. 

And as it is with small matters, so it is also with 
greater ones. The earth itself, and all the planets, re- 
volve around the sun, each in a period pecuHar to itself, 
a period which is always the same. We know exactly, 
by calculation, to a second, when an ecHpse will take 
place, long before it occurs. We know exactly, to a 
second, when there will be new moon or full moon. 
Indeed, everything in nature has always been found to 
be so regular that people in olden times called any fixed 
order of things, observed everywhere, ''a law of Nat- 
ure." They ought to have called it a law of the Crea- 
tor. 

If the law^s of the Creator are thus unchangeable, 
what must the Creator be ? Surely He, too, must be 
free from all change — Immutable. 

3. God is Incorporeal; that is. He does not pos- 
sess bodily form. If God is unchangeable, He cannot 



32 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

be composed of matter, or have any bodily form. For 
all things formed of matter, or having bodily form, are 
liable to change. The hardest rocks crumble to dust 
in course of time. Metals rust away to powder. Ev- 
erything natural, or formed of matter, is changed by 
time. If, then, God is unchangeable. He must also be 
incorporeal; He must be without bodily form. 

You will perhaps ask, if God has no bodily form, 
what is He Hke ? This is a question which no one can 
possibly answer. 

Some of us picture God as some great giant with 
enormous power. We must not think of God in that 
way at all, for then we would be no better than the an- 
cient idol- worshippers. When we think of our parents, 
and love them, we do not think so much of their looks 
or of their form, but of their goodness and kindness to 
us. Probably no one ever loved his mother any the 
less for her being ugly, or any the more for her being 
beautiful. And so we should think of God. We should 
think of His goodness and kindness to us, shown in 
His providing for our daily wants; of His wisdom and 
power, shown in the government of the world; of His 
mercy and forbearance, shown in His permitting sin- 
ners to Hve that they may repent of their wickedness; 
and, if we think of all these qualities, we need no other 
picture of God. 

4. God is Omniscient and Omnipresent; that is, 
He knows and sees everything. He, who creates and 
regulates all things, must surely have a perfect knowl- 
edge of things before they take place. 



MORE ABOUT GOD. 33 

How could it be otherwise ? Surely the great Creator 
must know everything which He has formed, and His 
power must be present everywhere among His works, 
though we see Him not; for we discern His watchful 
care in all things. He who is the Creator of every 
cause, must also be aware of the effect; for both effect 
and cause are of His creation. So God must know 
everything. Our every thought and action are ever 
open to the gaze of the God who made us. 

5. God is Omnipotent; that is, He is all-powerful. 
Let us try to understand this. It means that nothing is 
too great or too wonderful for the power of God to ac- 
complish. 

We see His mighty power wherever we turn, — in the 
giant mountains and in the vast deep, in the peaceful 
valleys and in the flowing streams, in the swift whirl- 
wind and in the rolhng thunder, in the rustling breeze 
and in the gentle dews. We see His power in the birds 
and beasts and fishes, in the trees and shrubs and 
flowers, and in ourselves. We see His power in the 
earthquake and volcano; in the splendid sun, the 
gentle moon, and all the hosts of heaven — countless 
beyond nimiber, great beyond measure, stretching 
through space beyond Hmit. 

Looking at these, His glorious works, and remem- 
bering that He rules and regulates all of them by His 
own Power and Will, who shall say that there can be a 
limit to the power of God? He moves worlds, and 
keeps them ever moving. Can we imagine anything 
requiring greater power? He gives life, and makes that 
3 



34 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

life bring forth fresh life, without end. Can we doubt 
the power of the Great Being who works such wonders ? 
Surely not! And therefore we say that God's power is 
immeasurably great. God is Omnipotent, All-pow- 
erful. 



CHAPTER V. 



MAN AND HIS POSITION. 



If I ask you what you are, you will reply, ''A human 
being"; and you will feel a sensation of pride in the 
knowledge that you are superior to the handsomest 
bird that soars through the skies, and nobler than the 
noblest beast that roams through the forests. 

And, indeed, you are : The beasts of the field and the 
fowls of the air have no speech. The wild beast roars 
ever the same note; the birds sing ever the same tune. 
Their enjoyments are few, because their wants are 
few. They live, they eat, they drink, they sleep, they 
bring forth young, they die — that is the life-history of 
every bird, beast, reptile, and fish, since the Creation 
till the present day. There has been no improvement, 
no progress. The bird builds its nest to-day precisely 
as birds did five thousand years ago. 

But with you, how different! You have speech — the 
power of conveying your thoughts, your feelings, and 
your wishes to those around you. Your voice is unlike 
any other voice in creation. What varieties of feeling it 
can express! With it you may laugh, or you may. cry; 
with it you may indicate your admiration or your dis- 
gust, your love, your pity, or your scorn. The same 

35 



36 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

words, spoken in different tones, will have different 
meanings. 

Then think of the music of the voice. The cuckoo 
never tires of her two notes, and knows no others; the 
nightingale, with a voice of wider range, yet only knows 
one song. But man can do much more. He can com- 
bine his notes without limit, and make sweet music 
to echo every thought ; as many songs as thoughts — 
without number. 

Then reflect upon your face. You may be plain or 
handsome, it matters not; there is that in your face 
which is a treasure beyond price — the power of expres- 
sion. The voice utters words, but it is the face which 
speaks. The voice of pity is sweet; but how much 
more eloquent the pitying look, the moist eye, the face 
ahght with sympathy! The voice of anger is terrible; 
but what are its effects without the flaming eye, the 
pouting lips, the distended nostrils, the flushed coun- 
tenance ? 

And think of the form of man. He is the only animal 
that stands naturally upright. Some animals, it is true, 
from their habit of climbing, assume something like the 
erect attitude; but it is always forced and unnatural; 
and the creature seems to be glad to walk on all its legs 
again. Those long fore-legs which, as they swing grace- 
lessly by the monkey's side, seem to try to make us be- 
lieve that they are arms, soon drop Hstlessly to the 
ground. The legs will be legs. The animal must walk 
bent to the earth. Even the gorilla, that nearest ap- 
proach to man, though its strength is enormous, soon 



MAN AND HIS POSITION 37 

becomes fatigued, when it walks in an erect position. 
The beast looks downwards, man upwards. There is 
something noble in the appearance of even the meanest 
man. 

But man has quaUties which are wholly absent in the 
brute creation. 

He alone has the gift of Reason. Some have main- 
tained that the brute shares this gift with man, but only 
in a less degree, and that what we call instinct is but a 
low kind of reason. But it matters Httle by what name 
we call it. We know full well, that the most sagacious 
brute never does anything which could indicate rea- 
soning. Its senses are keen, and it readily distinguishes 
friend from foe; its appetites are keen, and its senses 
guide the creature to the means of satisfying its crav- 
ings. It has its Hkes and dislikes, memory, hatred of 
a foe, and gratitude to a benefactor; but, in spite of its 
experience and memory, it shows no increase of intelli- 
gence, after it has once reached maturity. 

Man alone progresses. He does not accept the po- 
sition in which he is bom as a fate. His Free-will 
gives him the power of bettering his condition. No 
man is ever truly contented. The striving for some- 
thing higher is the blessed distinction of our race. With- 
out it, we would settle down in life like the beasts of the 
forest, careless of the future, indifferent to improve- 
ment. The desire of improvement spurs to healthy 
action, gives a relish for the duties of life, and bids us 
try to leave the world better than we have found it. 

The desire of improvement does not end here; it 



38 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

gives birth to that noblest of all desires — the hope of a 
future Hfe. 

And here again you feel the proud position of man. 
You feel that you have a Soul within you, a Spirit which 
can never perish, which must Hve, when your body will 
have decayed and crumbled into dust. You feel that 
it is this soul, that sets in motion all your thoughts, your 
feelings, your reasoning, your judgment, and all the 
powers of your mind. You feel that it is this soul that 
bids you improve, that makes you dissatisfied even with 
the greatest worldly happiness, that tells you that the 
fulness of happiness is in a world beyond this. 

If there were need to prove that the soul is immortal, 
you could not have a better proof than your own hopes 
— the hopes of all men. Surely God, whose greatest 
attribute is kindness, would not have breathed into 
man so noble a hope, and so holy an aspiration, without 
giving him the means of realizing them. The soul 
must be immortal, because an all-merciful Creator has 
bid us hope for immortaHty. 

We know that everything in creation has an object 
and purpose. If there be no hereafter for man, what is 
the object, what is the purpose of his life? Surely not 
the objects and purposes he attains in this world. 

Take, for example, the Hfe of a poor laboring man. 
He works hard all the days of his Hfe, and all his wages 
are a morsel of bread. He has few enjoyments, few 
comforts; and the older he gets, the more difficult he 
finds it to earn a livelihood, the more burdensome his 
existence becomes. 



MAN AND HIS POSITION. 39 

Perhaps he is more fortunate than such men usually 
are. Perhaps, as he grows old, his children love, honor, 
and cherish him, and he has few troubles to weigh down 
his hoary head. But, however fortunate the lot of such 
a man, as he grows older, he will find in the world fewer 
and fewer attractions. Everything becomes irksome. 
He used to like the music of children's voices; he can- 
not bear it now. He used to like a nice gossip with his 
neighbors ; he does not care for it now, for his tongue is 
sluggish and his mem^ory fails him. He used to like to 
read what was going on in the world; but now he can 
read no more: his sight is too weak; and if anyone 
reads to him, he is nervous. Ask him, "What would 
you like, my good old man?" and he wiW reply, '* Noth- 
ing, thank you. Let me sit quietly in my old arm-chair, 
next a roaring fire. Let me sit there quietly, doing 
nothing; only thinking." 

Can this be the end for which this good old man has 
been laboring hard all his life ? 

Take another case. Take, for example, the life of 
a great statesman. He has worked very hard for the 
public good. Early and late he has labored to improve 
the condition of his fellow- creatures. Suppose the most 
favorable state of things. His services have been suc- 
cessful, and have been fully valued. The nation hon- 
ors him; the great men of the earth court him; and 
people say he is one of the greatest men of the age. 
And he has a loving family, who almost adore him. As 
for riches, he has more than he can ever care to in- 
crease. What more can he have of the good things of 



40 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

this world? And yet, though this great man has at- 
tained the summit of his worldly ambition, he is not 
happy. He is growing very old. He cannot help him- 
self. He can scarcely walk. He goes to the Senate, the 
scene of his former triumphs, and people Hsten to a 
tremulous voice from Hps which used to pour forth fer- 
vid eloquence; and as they Hsten, fondly catching every 
syllable, they mutter to themselves, ''What a wonder- 
ful old man! but how different from what he was!" 
And then he knows himself how he has changed. He 
sees that the words of younger men have greater weight 
than his. So he enjoys the world no more. Day by day 
he becomes weaker. Even his high position weighs 
heavily upon him, bringing him responsibihties which 
he is too weak to bear. What can he do but follow the 
example of the poor old laborer, and sit quietly by the 
fireside, musing on the past ? 

And can this be the end for which this great and 
noble old man has been laboring hard all his Hf e ? Im- 
possible. There must be a higher end in a world be- 
yond this. There must be an existence in a future state, 
where the worker of good meets an eternal reward. 

But you must know that the majority of the human 
race are not so fortunate as the two men of whom we 
spoke. We are not all born to a happy life, not all des- 
tined to be heroes. For many, life is almost a struggle 
for existence. And what of them whose happiness is 
chequered with many misfortunes, and whose worldly 
hopes are seldom half fulfilled? Surely, the aims and 
objects of their lives are not to be found in this world. 



MAN AND HIS POSITION. 41 

And worldly happiness is, at best, but a very par- 
tial kind of happiness. One man longs to attain riches, 
and thinks he will have arrived at the summit of 
happiness, if he becomes a rich man. He works hard, 
and becomes rich. And when he is rich, do you think 
he has attained happiness? Another man longs for 
knowledge — a more w^orthy longing. He studies hard; 
he travels; he searches for truth everywhere, and be- 
comes a very learned man; and when he has acquired 
all this knowledge, what is his happiness ? He has the 
small gratification of feeHng that he knows a Httle more 
than his fellow- creatures; but he has learned, among 
other things, the humiliating fact, that the more knowl- 
edge he has acquired, the more extensive has the field of 
knowledge become to him. The more he explores, the 
greater the extent of unexplored territory that rises 
before him. 

And so with the object of every earthly hope, every 
earthly ambition that we foster in our hearts. It looks 
beautiful, it seems perfect happiness at a distance. 
But when attained, there seems always something 
wanting to make the happiness complete. We always 
crave for something more. 

What does all this show? Does it not distinctly in- 
dicate that if happiness be the wages for toil, our wages 
are not paid in this world ? Does not the very fact that 
our powers of enjoying worldly pleasures diminish as 
we grow older, plainly indicate that the great store- 
house of happiness is in a future world ? 

Yes. Wherever we look, we see facts which point 



42 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

clearly to the conclusion that this hfe is a preparation 
for another Hfe; that happiness may certainly be 
found on earth, but that perfect happiness cannot be 
attained in this Hfe; that we are constituted to improve, 
that we are placed here to improve; that our improve- 
ment leads to our happiness; that this world is a world 
of work, but that the real wages will be paid in a world 
beyond this. 



CHAPTER VI. 



REWARD AND PUNISHMENT. 



In the world to come, every man will receive the re- 
ward or the punishment to which his actions in this 
world entitle him. 

But you will say, "We know nothing of the next 
world. How can we talk about such matters ? " To a 
certain extent you are right. No one has ever come 
back from the great unknown — to tell us what is the 
reward of the pious, and what the punishment of the 
wicked. 

And it is well that our knowledge upon this subject 
is uncertain. For, if we knew exactly the nature and 
extent of the reward or punishment in store for us, 
there would be no such thing as pure motive, and con- 
sequently there would be no merit in doing right and 
avoiding wrong. 

Men would then probably find it worth their while 
to be good and moral, and would be so not because it 
was right, but because it was profitable. But would 
such happiness be pure happiness ? I think not. 

Suppose you go to school with your work well pre- 
pared, and that you have accomplished the task set you 
by dint of great industry and perseverance; and sup- 

43 



44 ISRAELIS FAITH. 

pose that your teacher is so pleased with your work, 
that he gives you a prize, which you never had the least 
idea he would bestow, you will feel delighted at receiv- 
ing such a reward. Your delight will be of the purest 
kind; for you will feel not only pleased at receiving the 
prize, but you will feel proud at having received it as a 
token of your industry, and not as a payment for your 
industry. You will feel that you have acquired that 
knowledge for the love of knowledge, and not for the 
sake of any benefit that you might derive from it. 

But, suppose that your teacher set his class this very 
same difficult task, telling you and all his pupils that 
whoever performed the task to his satisfaction should 
receive a prize, I dare say you would try to gain it. But 
if you did, I am sure your pleasure would be very dif- 
ferent from what it was when you gained the other 
prize, without it having been promised to you. You 
would work for the prize, not for the knowledge; and 
when you took the prize, you would feel as if you had 
taken a sort of bribe to do something v/hich was, after 
all, only right and proper that you should have done, 
without any bribe. The happiness being less pure, the 
knowledge acquired would be less pure. 

And so it would be, if our great Master, the Creator, 
had announced to us the reward in store for us in a future 
life for every good action, and the punishment for every 
sin. The happiness derived from the reward would not 
be pure happiness. But, with the uncertainty of our 
knowledge as to the reward and punishment, virtue is 
truly its own reward on earth, and the happiness, be it 



REWARD AND PUNISHMENT. 45 

great or small, which will be our prize in heaven will 
be pure happiness. 

That such reward and punishment must exist, is 
sufficiently clear. Let us see how it is that we must be- 
lieve it: 

In every- day life, we frequently see bad men pros- 
pering, and good men suffering the greatest misfor- 
tune. We often see men, utterly unworthy, leading a 
very pleasant life, growing rich and powerful, and 
apparently untouched by the least pang of remorse. 
Everything with them seems to prosper, and good for- 
tune seems to grow even out of their wickedness. On 
the other hand, there are men who lead a good and 
virtuous Hfe — honest, industrious, and religious men — 
whose labors end ail in disappointment, who are stricken 
by poverty or disease, and who are ever bowed down 
under the weight of their misfortunes. 

God is just; and even though these cases may be 
exceptional. He cannot be unjust even in these excep- 
tional cases. Now, if there were no punishm^ent in a 
future hfe for the wicked man who prospers in this 
world, and no reward in a future life for the good man 
who is unfortunate in this world, would such a state of 
things be consistent with the perfect justice of God? 
We know not fully the ways of God; but we know for 
certain that He is just; and justice requires that the 
wicked man who prospers here shall be punished here- 
after, and that the good man who is unfortunate here 
should receive the reward of his good deeds in a future 
state. 



46 Israel's faith. 

Just as the bread is sweetest, for which we have to 
toil the hardest; just as the child is dearest, for whom 
we have to suffer most anxiety, so is the happiness 
greatest for which we have to work the most. 

So we are here to earn the everlasting happiness, 
which will be true happiness only if we shall have 
fairly earned it by working for it and deserving it. We 
all have trials and temptations placed in our way; and 
he deserves eternal reward the most who overcomes 
them. We all have passions and vices, and he earns 
best his title to everlasting reward who conquers them. 
We all have opportunities of doing good to our fellow- 
creatures, of improving our own minds, of contributing, 
each in jiis own small way, to the improvement of the 
world. He who does this work well, deserves and earns 
the highest reward of immortal Hfe. 

But if, on the contrary, we encourage our vices, if we 
lead a selfish hfe, setting a bad example to those who 
are sure to copy us, if we abuse our opportunities, if 
we are dishonest to our neighbors, if we stifle the voice 
of conscience, if we transgress the laws of morality, 
if we forget all else in our love of wealth and worldly 
position, can we expect a reward in a future life from a 
just God? Must we not rather expect a punishment 
for spending our Hves uselessly and wickedly, for ne- 
glecting golden opportunities, for abusing the wonder- 
ful powers with which we are endowed ? 

Every man is responsible for his deeds. According 
to his work, so will be his wages in the world to come. 



PART 11. 

CHAPTER I. 

HOW RELIGION WAS REVEALED. 

Before the world was very old there were all sorts 
of rehgions. People were not satisfied with the simple 
and beautiful rehgion taught by Nature, which declared 
One only God to be the Creator of Heaven and Earth. 

In course of time almost all men worshipped idols, 
images of wood or metal or stone, of their own making, 
or worshipped the sun, or fire, or animals, instead of the 
great and unseen God. 

Perhaps it was because God was invisible that they 
at first made idols to remind them of Him. Perhaps, 
when they at first worshipped and bowed down to the 
sun, they thought they were doing honor to God, its 
Creator. But, in course of time, some worshipped the 
sun as if it were the Creator, and others bowed down to 
idols, the work of their own hands, as if the idols had 
made them. It is diflScult to believe that people could 
have been so silly; but it is nevertheless true. Hun- 
dreds of those idols are preserved in the British Mu- 
seum, some of wood, some of metal, and some of stone. 
Many of the people who worshipped those idols were 

47 



48 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

very clever, and were only silly in their religious belief 
and practices. 

Now, if people simply believed in a foolish religion, 
and in other respects were good people, always doing 
right and acting justly, their silly belief would, perhaps, 
do no great harm to any but themselves. But unfor- 
tunately it happened that the worship of idols led to 
all sorts of wickedness. 

The fire-worshippers, for example, used to sacrifice 
men and women and even children to their fire-god, 
burning them in fiery furnaces as offerings (read Deut. 
xii. 31). Captives of war, instead of being kindly 
treated or kept as slaves, were slain in like manner, as 
offerings to the idols, and, such was sometimes the 
frenzy of idolaters, that many of them sacrificed their 
own lives, or the lives of their own dearest children, to 
those idols they declared to be their gods. 

All this went on for very many years, for hundreds 
of years. Religion became idolatry, and as idolatry 
grew, all kinds of wickedness grew, till at last the world 
became so wicked that it could never have continued 
in such a state. 

But God ordained it otherwise. He could not leave 
men to make their own religion, for the results had been 
too dreadful; so God Himself had to teach the religion 
that was true and good and fit for mankind, not only to 
make known His own existence. His own ways and 
works, but to make known His will. His Law, His code 
of right and wrong. The making known of this knowl- 
edge to man is called Revelation. 



HOW RELIGION WAS REVEALED. 49 

We read in the Bible how God revealed Himself. 

It was not done in a moment. It was the slow work 
of many, many years. 

God revealed Himself to Noah, immediately after 
the flood, by giving the world, through him, a few laws, 
intended to prevent those acts of \dolence which, be- 
fore the deluge, had filled the world (read Gen. vi. 11). 

God again revealed Himself to Abraham, the son of 
an idolater. He bade him leave his native land, his 
kindred, and his father's house, and travel in distant 
countries; and assured him that through him all the 
nations of the earth should be blessed. And v»^herever 
he went, Abraham proclaimed the Name of the True 
God, and by his noble example of goodness, kindness, 
virtue, and unselfishness, showed the world that his 
religion must be the true one; and that his God must 
be the One only God. 

Abraham had several sons, one of whom — Isaac — 
was alone worthy to succeed him in his mission. He, 
too, travelled about, working, like his father, to make 
known to the world that as God is all Goodness, so 
there cannot be godhness without goodness; and that 
the love of God is best shown by the love of our fellow- 
men. 

Jacob, too, was considered worthy to follow his 
father in his task of improving the world in spite of all 
his faults and faiHngs. Sacred history shows Jacob 
to be a grand example of confidence and belief in the 
goodness and power of God. 

Jacob died, and so, too, Joseph, and all his other 
4 



so ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

sons. While they lived, they and their descendants 
were loved and respected by the Egyptians; but when 
they died, the great good which Joseph had worked 
for Egypt, was soon forgotten; a new king arose, who 
knew not Joseph; and all the Israehtes, or descendants 
of Jacob, were cruelly treated. 

For they were too prosperous. They increased in 
numbers; and as they increased, so the knowledge of 
the True God probably spread throughout the land, 
and threatened to put an end to the idolatry of Egypt. 
The Egyptians grew alarmed at this. They worshipped 
living animals, birds, beasts, and reptiles. One would 
scarcely beUeve it; for the same history which tells 
these facts gives full particulars of the wonderful learn- 
ing of the Egyptians, and shows how they were wiser 
in science and in the arts than any people of that age. 

For a long, long time, the Israehtes were oppressed 
by the Egyptians, used as slaves, over-worked and 
tormented; but in spite of all this ill-treatment, they 
did not join the idolaters of Egypt: they remained 
steadfast to their ReUgion; and when they suffered, 
they cried to the Lord God of their fathers, the One 
True God, whom they had been taught to regard as 
the Ruler of the world. 

Their cry was heard. For God sent them Moses to 
deliver them from the oppression of the Egyptians — 
the man who was to make known God's Law to His 
people and through them to all mankind. 

We read in the Bible how Moses followed the com- 
mands of God; how he communicated his message of 



HOW RELIGION WAS REVEALED. J I 

deKverance to His people; how he begged Pharaoh, 
often and in vain, to allow the IsraeHtes to leave Egypt; 
how the wicked king afflicted the Israelites more and 
more; how Moses threatened him with the anger of 
God; how Pharaoh persisted in his wickedness; how 
Moses worked miracles in the sight of the king, to show 
that God indeed had sent him; how ten terrible plagues 
were sent, one after the other, to punish Pharaoh and 
his people for their ill-treatment of the poor IsraeUtes; 
and how on the night of the tenth plague, when the 
firstborn of every Egyptian family was struck dead, 
the children of Israel, who, Hving in the midst of these 
awful plagues, had remained uninjured and untouched 
by them, were allowed, amid the scene of death and 
suffering, to pass out of the cities of the Egyptians, un- 
hurt and without hindrance. 

But the miracle which, more than any other, was to 
show the IsraeHtes the power of God, was the destruc- 
tion of Pharaoh's host, at the Red Sea. 

Saved in so wonderful a manner, when all hope of 
dehverance had vanished, they were compelled to be- 
Heve in God. Indeed, the Bible tells us, that when 
''Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore 
. . . the people feared the Lord, and believed in the 
Lord and His servant Moses." 

Moses led the IsraeHtes from the banks of the Red 
Sea into the v^lderness of Arabia; and here they were 
fed daily with food which fell from Heaven. A pillar of 
cloud led them by day, and a piUar of fire showed them 
the way by night. They Hved a Hfe of miracle, for all 



52 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

their daily wants were supplied by an unseen Hand, 
and by no work of their own. 

After a few weeks of this miraculous life in the des- 
ert, they came to the wilderness of Sinai; and their 
minds were thus well prepared to receive the great 
Revelation — the proclamation of the Will of God. They 
wxre ready to listen and to beHeve. 

And when they came near the mountain of Sinai, 
where God was about to reveal Himself to them, He 
called to Moses and bade him prepare them for their 
mission. He was to tell them, "If ye will obey My 
voice, indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be 
a pecuHar treasure unto Me above all people, for all the 
earth is Mine. And you shall be unto Me a kingdom 
of priests, and an holy nation." And when the people 
heard these v/ords, they answered together, ''All that 
the Lord has spoken we will do." 

The declaring of the Law was a wonderful event— 
the greatest event that ever took place in the world's 
history. God revealed Himself and His holy Will 
through His servant Moses, not secretly to a few, not in 
a dream by night, but in the open day, to a whole nation 
of six hundred thousand men. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 

When children are young, their wise parents do not 
teach them too many things at first, lest they might 
forget them; but they tell them first the few things 
which are the most important; and as they get older, 
they go on teaching them more and more, Httle by 
Httle. 

And God treated the children of Israel in the same 
wise way. He did not tell them all the Law at once, 
but began with the Ten Commandments, because, 
although the most important, they were quite easy and 
simple, and could be understood and obeyed by every 
one. 

I. I am the Lord thy God, who has brought thee out of the land 
of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 

II. Thou shalt make no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not 
make unto thyself any graven image, or any likeness of anything 
that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in 
the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow thyself down to 
them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, 
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third 
and fourth generations of them that hate me; and showing kindness 
unto the thousandth generation of them that love me, and keep my 
commandments. 

III. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; 
for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain. 

53 



54 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

IV. Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. Six days shalt 
thou labor, and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the Sab- 
bath in honor of the Lord thy God; on it thou shalt not do any work, 
neither thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, 
nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within 
thy gate. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the 
earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh 
day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath and hallowed it. 

V. Honor thy father and thy mother in order that thy days may 
be prolonged upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 

VI. Thou shalt not kill. 

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

VIII. Thou shalt not steal. 

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. 

X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, 
nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is 
thy neighbor's. 

The First Commandment. 

God began the Commandments by telling the Israel- 
ites that He was the same God who saved them from 
the Egyptians. God might have told the children of 
Israel that He was the God who had created all the 
world. But they could not have understood that half 
so well as the fact which they had so lately experienced 
— that He was the God who had saved them from slav- 
ery, and that He alone was worthy to be the Lord their 
God. 

The Second Commandment. 

In the Second Commandment God tells the Israel- 
ites that they shall have no other God but Him; that 
they shall make no idols, nor bow down to images. 
And then God tells them something about Himself. 



THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 5$ 

He tells them that He is a just God who punishes the 
wicked and that He is also a merciful God, who is good 
and kind to all who love Him and obey His laws. 

The Third Commandment. 

The Third Commandment forbids us to swear falsely ; 
forbids us to swear at all, unless it be necessary to do 
so in the interest of truth. 

In courts of law, people who give evidence, have to 
promise to speak the truth, and they call God to witness 
that every word they are about to speak is true. This 
is called swearing, or taking an oath. If, after taking 
the oath, they say anything untrue, they are guilty of 
perjury, or false swearing. 

People must never swear except when ordered to do 
so by law. If they swear without it being necessary, 
they take the name of God in vain. 

But taking the name of God in vain has yet another 
meaning. If we pray to God without thinking about 
what we are saying; or if we pray in a hurried, careless 
manner, only anxious to get through our prayers, or if 
we laugh or gossip in the synagogue, we take God's 
name in vain. 

The Fourth Commandment. 

The Fourth Commandment is a very long one. 

You, who have lessons all the week, will no doubt 
think this a very pleasant commandment, and one very 
easy to obey; and perhaps you will think that God 



56 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

need only have ordered the Israelites to rest on the sev- 
enth day without going into so many particulars. Yet 
there are plenty of people who break this law, and 
keep no Sabbath, but go on, week after week, working, 
and working, and working, without having any day of 
rest. They either forget or will not remember that 
they are disobeying God. 

Now God tells us very plainly that v/e must do all 
our work on six days of the week ; but that the seventh 
is the Sabbath or day of rest, and that neither we nor 
our servants, nor even our cattle, should do any sort of 
work that day; and He tells us that, after having made 
all things in six days, He Himself rested on the seventh 
day, and thus hallowed the Sabbath by His own ex- 
ample. 

The world is so full of life and work that we are apt 
to forget how great a blessing is rest. What would you 
be, I wonder, without rest? How do you think you 
would get on, if, when tired out, you were to lie down 
and be unable to sleep, or if, when dreadfully fatigued, 
some cruel person were to come and tell you you must 
go on playing or running or jumping, whether you liked 
it or not ? Do you think you would enjoy it, when tired 
out and ready for a nice refreshing sleep ? I think not. 

And is it not wonderful how, without trying at all, 
you can go to sleep? and how you wake up, feeling 
fresh and vigorous and ready for fun, just as if you had 
never been fatigued ? or how, after a long, tiring walk, 
you sit down and rest, and then feel quite strong again 
and ready for another long walk ? Do you wonder that 



THE TEN CO^IMANDMENTS. 57 

God should have blessed the Day of Rest and made it 
holy? 

But if you, who only have to learn lessons or do nee- 
dlework, and no other very hard Vv^ork v/ith your head 
or your hands, find rest so pleasant, how must it be 
with grown-up people, who have to Vv^ork hard for their 
living all the week? How delighted they ought to be 
when Friday evening comes, and they feel that they 
need not, cannot, and dare not do any more work for a 
whole day! Not only would they enjoy the rest for 
which they have worked so hard, but when the tim.e 
comes for them to set to v/ork again, they would enjoy 
their Vv^ork all the more, just as you feel more incHned 
for a nice romp, after you wake up from a sound sleep. 
You may feel quite sure that those who do not keep the 
Sabbath do not half enjoy their lives. 

Now, most rehgions besides ours, have a Sabbath; 
although, as you know, some keep it on a different day; 
but they don't keep the Sabbath as we do : and I dare 
say you*will ask how we ought to keep it. 

You might be inclined to say that, as it is a day of 
rest, people should lie in bed all Sabbath, and so have 
a nice long day of idleness. But, if you look at the 
Fourth Commandment, you will find that the seventh 
day is called the " Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Now, 
this shows that we ought to spend at least some part of 
the Sabbath in the service of God, in reflecting about 
Him and His wonderful w^orks, and in praising and 
thanking Him for His goodness. 

But you must not imagine that the Sabbath is to be. 



S8 

as some of our neighbors make it, a sad day, on which 
you may not laugh, or be merry, or read pleasant books. 
Our religion is a happy religion and a natural one, and 
you are meant to be happy and natural on the Sabbath 
day. When you have done your religious duties, you 
may play as much as you Hke. There are some things 
which you may not do, even though they be for enjoy- 
ment; but there are plenty of pleasures left to you for 
the Sabbath, and it must be not only a day of rest and 
quiet thought, but a day of joy and gladness. 

The Fifth Commandment. 

To honor one's parents means much more than merely 
paying them respect. It means that we must do what- 
ever they tell us willingly, and even without asking why. 
It means that we must follow their good advice. It 
means that we must care for them lovingly when they 
grow old or ill or infirm, as lovingly as they cared for 
us when we were young and helpless. It means that 
we must bear in mind their wishes when we are away 
from them, and even long after they are dead. It 
means that we must never do anything to dishonor 
their good name. 

And if we obey this command, God promises us that 
our days shall be long in the land that He giveth us. 

The Sixth Commandment. 

"Thou shalt not commit murder," is one of the most 
important laws in the Bible. It was not a new law when 



THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 59 

God gave it on Sinai. He gave the same law to Noah 
when he and his family came out of the ark. 

Obedience to this law makes the great difference be- 
tween savages and civilized men. Among barbarians, 
life is never safe. One man hates another or envies his 
property, and he thinks nothing of killing him, if he be 
the stronger man. We, who are civilized, are to do all 
in our power to protect and save hfe. We may not 
stand by quietly and see a fellow-being perish, if we 
can assist him. When you read this commandment, you 
must not think that it does not apply to you, to whom 
the horrid thought of murdering a fellow-creature 
v/ould never occur; but remember that it bids you 
assist your poor and suffering fellow-creatures, and do 
all that is in your power to help them to live. 

The Seventh Commandment. 

This commandment bids husbands and wives to be 
faithful, true, and kind to one another. 

The Eighth Commandment. 

There are unfortunately a great number of people 
who steal rather than work for a living. If they are 
found out, they are sent to prison, or otherwise pun- 
ished; and there are people who have actually spent 
the greater part of their Hves in prison, having been so 
often found guilty of theft. Perhaps they have been 
the children of bad, dishonest parents, and have seen 
all sorts of wickedness in their young days. Not that 



6o 

this excuses them; but it accounts for their wickedness, 
which would otherwise be hard to understand. 

The protection oj human life was one of the greatest 
marks of distinction between savages and civiHzed men. 
The protection oj property is another such mark of dis- 
tinction. If property were not safe, no one would care 
to work hard to make money or amass wealth; and 
people would only care to work enough for their use 
from day to day, lest some one stronger than they 
should come and rob them of all they had saved. Sav- 
ing, or *' thrift," as it is called, is of great importance to 
the welfare of the world; for without thrift in good times 
we might starve when the bad times come. And, in- 
deed, this really happens in barbarous countries, even 
in our own days. Property not being safe against 
thieves, the people do not care to save, but eat and use 
all that they produce. When a bad harvest comes, 
they have saved nothing, and they starve to death. So 
you see the importance of thrift; and as thrift cannot 
exist unless property is safe, you see also the importance 
of the law, "Thou shalt not steal." 

Other parts of the Bible contain laws on the same 
subject, and give us particulars of the punishment of 
theft. In Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, we are com- 
manded to be just in business matters, and to give full 
weight and true measure. A thief, if the article stolen 
were found with him, had to pay twice the value of 
what he had taken; and if he stole a Hving animal, and 
slew it, he had to "restore five oxen for the ox, and four 
sheep for the sheep." If he had not the means of pay- 



THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 6 1 

ing, he was sold as a slave, and this was the origin of 
what we now call ''penal servitude," which means im- 
prisonment for a certain term of years, with hard labor. 

The Ninth Commandment. 

When the Jews lived in their own country, in Pales- 
tine, and a witness gave evidence affecting the Hfe of a 
prisoner, the Judges reminded the witness of the duty 
of speaking the exact truth, and told him that he who 
destroyed one single human Hfe was as guilty as if he 
had destroyed a whole world. 

It is almost impossible to imagine any one guilty of 
so terrible a sin as bearing false witness against an- 
other; and yet there have been many cases, in which 
people have even been condemned to death upon evi- 
dence falsely given. 

God has ordained in His Law that the perjurer is 
to suffer the same punishment as the intended victim 
would have suffered, if the perjurer's evidence had held 
good: "If the witness be a false witness, and has testi- 
fied falsely against his brother, then you shall do unto 
him as he had thought to have done unto his brother." 
_ Unfortunately, bearing false witness against a neigh- 
bor is rather a common, every- day sin. 

When you hear children speaking against one an- 
other, making much of their playmates' little faults, or 
taking away their characters, although they are not 
perjurers, yet they bear false witness against their 
neighbors. Nothing is more valuable to anyone than 
character. And yet nothing is so easily injured by a 



62 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

chance word, perhaps carelessly or thoughtlessly 
spoken. Gossips, who are too idle to work, are never 
too idle to talk, and they dearly love a little scandal 
about their neighbors. They mean it to be harmless 
enough, and have, perhaps, no notion of hurting any- 
one; but the harmless scandal, every time it is re- 
peated, becomes greater and greater, exaggerated each 
time it is spoken, till, at last, it is by no means harm- 
less; for it destroys a good character. 

The Tenth Commandment. 

Covetousness is the root of almost every sin. 

We are ordered not to covet anything that is our 
neighbor's; and many people have thought this rather 
an unreasonable law, because they have not under- 
stood it properly. 

The sin of coveting consists not in your wishing for 
a similar article, but for the same article that your neigh- 
bor has. His house, for example, could not be yours 
unless you, somehow, deprived him of it, and in order to 
do this, you might be induced to do him some wrong. 

King Ahab, the Bible tells us, coveted the vineyard 
of Naboth; and because Naboth would not sell it to 
him, the King's wife, Jezebel, procured some wicked 
men to give false evidence that Naboth had committed 
a fearful crime against God, and the poor man was 
stoned to death; and then Ahab took possession of the 
vineyard he had so longed for. 

Ahab and Jezebel were both very wicked people : so 
you are, perhaps, not much surprised at their being 



THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 63 

covetous. But even the great and good King David, in 
a moment of blind passion, committed a terrible sin, 
through coveting his neighbor's wife, and he was fear- 
fully punished in consequence. 

So you see to what covetousness may lead us. There 
is no harm in being ambitious — that is, in wanting to 
grow greater, or richer, or more comfortable, and to 
have nice things about us. The harm is in letting the 
ambition become a passion, and letting the passions so 
get the better of us, that we don't mind what we do so 
long as we get what we want. 

War and murder and theft and misery, and, indeed, 
almost every evil in the world would vanish, if people 
would only obey the Tenth Commandment. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE LAW OF MOSES. 



The Law which God gave to our forefathers is called 
the "Law of Moses," or the "Mosaic Code," because 
after God had proclaimed the Ten Commandments on 
Mount Sinai, He gave other laws by the mouth of Mo- 
ses, who taught them to the people, through the chiefs 
of the tribes and the wise men, during the forty years' 
wanderings in the wilderness. 

These laws were not given to Moses all at once ; they 
were given at different times, as occasion required. 
When the forty years' wanderings were over, and Moses 
was about to die, he repeated the most important of 
them, and added some, which had not been mentioned 
before. 

Surely, no better way could have been found of 
teaching a people so many laws, than by giving them a 
few at a time, and putting them in practice as they were 
given. 

Remember that in those times — thousands of years 
before printing was invented — the laws had to be so 
taught as to be well kept in memory, and there is no 
better way of remembering things than by practising 
them. 

The first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, 
64 



THE LAW OF MOSES. 65 

Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, are together 
called the Torah, or Law. These books are not all 
law-books; they are history and law combined. The 
word Torah means much more than '4aw"; it means 
instruction, or what we now call education. 

The laws of the Pentateuch are not arranged, like 
Acts of Parhament, in a Statute Book, one after the 
other, in regular order; still, there is a certain amount 
of system in their arrangement, and though history and 
law appear mixed up together, there is good reason for 
it. Some connection will always be found between the 
history and the laws which are next to it. 

The Israelites to whom the Law was given were 
meant to be distinguished from all the rest of the world; 
they were designed to be "a kingdom of priests, a holy 
nation." They were to be a pattern of goodness and 
virtue for all the nations of the earth, and it was with 
that intention that God gave the Law. 

When you come to the end of Deuteronomy, you will 
probably say, '' Surely it was not intended that all the 
world should obey all these laws!" and you would be 
right. But it was intended that the Israelites should obey 
them; for God had told them that He had set them 
apart to be a pecuHar people, to be His own chosen 
nation, so that all the world should look up to them as 
examples. For this reason He told them that they 
should be holy, since He the Lord their God was Holy. 
For this reason He told them to set aside the evil cus- 
toms they had learned in Egypt, and to follow only the 
customs which He taught them; not to adopt the laws 
5 



66 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

of the nations among whom they were about to dwell, 
but to follow only the Law which He revealed to Moses, 
different from any law which up to that time had 
existed. 

When you read ancient history, you will understand 
how different this Law was. You will find that the laws 
and the customs, which existed among the ancient pa- 
gan nations, were terribly cruel, and, in many respects, 
terribly wicked. Those laws were the laws of "might 
against right." The slave, for example, had no rights 
— not even the right to Hve, if his master wished him to 
die. The creditor had full power over the Hfe of his 
unfortunate debtor. The helpless had no protection 
for their Hves; old people, who were unable to work, 
were put to death ; and Httle babies, who were delicate 
at birth, were exposed to cold and hunger, and ne- 
glected till they died. You will be shocked indeed, 
when you learn how cruel were the nations of ancient 
times, and what wickedness was sanctioned by their 
laws. 

So you see how necessary it was that, besides a model 
rehgion, there should be a model code — a complete set 
of laws — which should be followed by a model nation, 
and form a pattern for all other nations to copy, so far 
as it might apply to their special position and wants. 
True, the whole world was not meant to be a "kingdom 
of priests" Hke the IsraeHtes; so it was not expected 
that the whole world should follow all those special 
customs and observances, which were intended to 
make the Israelites, outwardly and inwardly, different 



THE LAW OF MOSES. 67 

from all other nations ; but the whole world could look 
up to the '^ kingdom of priests," and copy their charity, 
their brotherly love, their justice, their morality, and 
their steadfast faith; and this was what God meant 
when He four times declared to Abraham, ''Through 
thee shall all the famihes of the earth be blessed." 

God's promise to Abraham has been fulfilled. The 
Jews, notwithstanding all their failings, yet deserve the 
name of the "kingdom of priests." For, dispersed 
among the nations, the Jews alone have remained the 
guardians of God's Holy Law, not simply guarding and 
preserving the Bible as a volume of venerable antiquity, 
but regarding it as the Word of the Hving God, and ob- 
serving the self-same Law of Moses that our forefathers 
observed three thousand years ago. 



CHAPTER IV. 



SACRIFICE AND PRAYER. 



When the world was young, men did very much 
the same as little children do, who bring sweetmeats 
to their parents, thinking that what they themselves 
like best must be acceptable to their parents. Cain and 
Abel brought to God offerings — Cain from the fruit 
which he had tended, Abel from the firsthngs of his 
flocks. Soon afterward, in the time of Seth, we find 
that "men began to call on the name of the Lord." 
This means that men gave expression to their gratitude 
in the language of prayer and praise. And thus both 
sacrifice and prayer existed very early in the history of 
the world. 

These were the first "religious observances." 

But we have seen how, in course of time, the people 
became idolaters, and how they, at last, came to sacrifice 
men and women, and even their own little children, in 
the strange behef that if they sacrificed that which was 
dearest to themselves, it would be pleasing to their gods. 

So one of the first things that God had to teach the 
children of Israel was to give up the terrible practices 
of idolatry. To stop sacrifices altogethet, and all at 
once, would not have been advisable — perhaps hardly 

68 



SACRIFICE AND PRAYER. 69 

possible; for the desire to give something to God could 
not be checked. That desire had to be made harmless 
and even useful; and to this end v^as instituted the 
system of sacrifices that we find in the Mosaic code. 
In the first laws w^hich God gave the IsraeHtes after the 
Ten Commandments, He forbade their making gods of 
silver and gold, but explained to them how they might 
bring sacrifices. "Ye shall not make unto Me gods of 
silver, neither shall you make unto you gods of gold. 
An altar of earth shalt thou make unto Me, and shalt 
sacrifice thereon thy burnt-offerings, and thy peace- 
offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen." 

The Israelites were not to sacrifice human beings. 
They might bring as offerings beasts or birds ; but these 
were to be clean animals, without blemish. Even then 
the offerings had to be made in certain fixed and par- 
ticular ways. Those who brought the sacrifice were 
not permitted to offer it themselves. It had to be offered 
by a priest, one of the descendants of Aaron, who were 
all considered holy servants of God. 

Any animal required for food by the IsraeHtes during 
their abode in the wilderness, had to be taken to the 
priest, slaughtered by him, and the blood and fat offered 
as a sacrifice. All this was to show how sacred a thing 
is Hfe. It was to show that even the Hfe of a brute was 
not to be taken Hghtly, or wantonly; and thus the peo- 
ple would be led to think that if the Hfe of a beast be 
thus regarded, how sacred must be the hfe of a human 
being! 

A large portion of the Book of Leviticus is filled with 



70 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

particulars of the various sacrifices, and the manner in 
which they were to be offered. 

We read about burnt-offerings, meat-offerings, peace- 
offerings, sin-offerings, trespass-offerings, and offerings 
of consecration. There were daily offerings, offerings on 
the Sabbath, the Festivals, and the Day of Atonement. 

The object of all this was to compel a fixed form of 
sacrifice, so that the IsraeUtes might never imitate the 
wicked idolatries and human sacrifices which they had 
been accustomed to see in Egypt. These forms of sac- 
rifice, described in the Bible, were sufficient to satisfy 
all religious feehngs and cravings and wants. 

The work of constructing the Tabernacle for the ser- 
vice of God is very minutely described in the Bible. 
God gives every particular and detail of how it is to be 
made, and how furnished; and so it is prepared and 
fitted under the very eyes of the people, without mys- 
tery or concealment; unlike the religious systems of 
other nations, in which the priests made a mystery of 
everything, lest the people should see the deceptions 
they practised. 

Everything in the Tabernacle was so made that the 
worship therein was to be open and pubKc to the whole 
assembly of Israelites. The priest was to be seen when 
he went into the sanctuary, and when he came out. 
The priest was one of themselves, one of the kingdom 
of priests. He was to minister to God, not as a mediator 
between God and His people, but solely as a servant of 
God, performing the service of God, according to fixed 
rules and ordinances. 



SACRIFICE AND PRAYER. 7 1 

It will probably appear very strange to you that God 
should accept the blood of an animal as an atonement 
for men's sins; and it certainly would be very curious, 
if it were true; but it is not true. Nothing could be 
more ridiculous than the idea that a man, who had com- 
mitted some terrible sin, should receive the forgiveness 
of God by simply bringing to a priest an animal to be 
slaughtered; and there is nothing in the Bible to war- 
rant so absurd an idea. 

Read carefully the 5th and 6th chapters of Leviticus, 
if you wish to understand the spirit and meaning of sacri- 
fices. You will find that if a man committed a sin against 
God, he had first to make a confession of his sin, and 
afterward to bring, as an offering, a lamb or a kid ; and 
if he could not afford a lamb or a kid, two turtle-doves 
or two young pigeons ; and in case he could not afford 
these Httle birds, a tenth part of a measure of fine flour 
could be offered, and the priest burned on the altar a 
handful of the flour. In the last case — the sacrifice of 
the flour — there was no life taken, so there was evi- 
dently no sacrifice of blood. And thus you see the tak- 
ing 0} life and the sacrifice of blood were not essential to 
the atonement. The really important part of the pro- 
ceeding was the confession of the sin and the open decla- 
ration of the sinner's penitence. 

Reading a little further, you will find that if a man 
sinned against his neighbor by deahng falsely with him, 
or by robbing him, or by deceiving him, or by detaining 
lost property that he had found, or by swearing to a 
neighbor's injury — then he had to bring as a sin-offer- 



72 

ing a ram without blemish. But, before bringing it, he 
had to make good to the neighbor he had injured all that 
he had wronged him of, and to give him, in addition, 
one-fifth part of the value. In this case it is clear that 
the really important part of the transaction was not the 
offering, but the making good the injury. 

If we wish further to see how small a value God 
placed upon sacrifices, compared with the spirit in 
which the sacrifice was brought, we have only to refer 
to the prophets and sacred writings. 

Samuel tells Saul, who, contrary to God's orders, 
had saved alive the sheep and oxen of the Amalekites 
to sacrifice to the Lord at Gilgal, "Behold to obey is 
better than sacrifice, to hearken than the fat of rams." 

Isaiah exclaims, "To what purpose is the multitude 
of your sacrifices unto Me ? saith the Lord. I am full 
of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts, 
and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, 
or of he-goats. . . . Wash you, make you clean; put 
away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; 
cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, re- 
lieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the 
widow." 

God proclaims, through His prophet Jeremiah, that 
the aim of the Law was obedience and not sacrifice. 

The prophet Micah asks, "Wherewith shall I come 
before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God ? 
Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings, with 
calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with 
thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of 



SACRIFICE AND PRAYER. 73 

oil? . . . What does the Lord require of thee, but to 
do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly before 
God?" 

We read in the 50th Psalm, "I will take no bullock 
out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds. For 
every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a 
thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains ; 
and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were 
hungry, I would not tell thee; for the world is mine, 
and the fuhiess thereof. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls ? 
or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanks- 
giving, and pay thy vows unto tJte Most High.^^ 

King Solomon, too, in the 21st chapter of Proverbs, 
declares, "To do justice and judgment is more accepta- 
ble to the Lord than sacrifice." 

Thus we find that the performance of other duties, 
such as obedience to God, was considered of greater 
importance than the bringing of sacrifice. 

We learn from the Prophets that, though we have at 
present no sacrifices and no priests, there are other 
means to make ourselves acceptable to God. By peni- 
tence, prayer, and praise; by acting justly, mercifully, 
and charitably. 

The act of prayer and praise was one of the first ob- 
servances in the history of mankind. It is, therefore, 
proper to say a word concerning prayer in this place. 

"What is the good of prayer?" Can we expect that 
the praises we offer to God are pleasant for Him to 
hear ? Can we hope that He, who made all the world, 
listens to our puny voices and feeble words? It seems 



74 Israel's faith. 

at first hardly possible; but we know that it is not only 
possible but certain; for God Himself commands us to 
pray to Him and to praise Him. He tells us: "When 
thou hast eaten and art satisfied, then thou shalt bless 
the Lord thy God for the good land which He hath 
given thee" (Deut. xii. lo). And so in our prayer and 
our praise we are to look to God as the source of all 
blessing, to acknowledge Him as the Great Power who 
supports, rules, and sustains us. This acknowledgment 
is the great principle of every rehgion. 

When, therefore, the great men of Israel ordained 
that we should worship God three times a day, and that 
we should offer thanks to Him before and after every 
meal, and utter a blessing on every suitable occasion, 
their object was a wise one. They intended that, in 
every act of our Hves, we should acknowledge the 
greatness, goodness, and providence of God, so that 
the thought that He is always and everywhere at hand 
should keep us from sinning, and cause us to lead a 
good and a virtuous life. 

But even if the Law of God had been silent on the 
subject of prayer, the dictates of our hearts would 
prompt us to utter words of praise; for gratitude is the 
natural impulse of man. If you have a favorite dog, 
whom you feed and carefully tend, he will hck your 
hand and dance around you in dehght, and show you 
his gratitude in many ways. If you have a little bird, 
to whom you daily give his dole of grain and drink, he 
will warble out his note of thanks every time he sees 
you. How, then, can man, who alone has the gift of 



SACRIFICE AND PRAYER. 75 

words, forbear to bring the homage of his heart and the 
offering of his Hps to the Creator, who made him and 
sustains him ? That we should pray to God is a law of 
God, but also a law of Nature, which every man, woman, 
and child gladly obeys. Perhaps God is pleased with 
our songs of praise, just as you are pleased to hear the 
warbhngs of the Httle bird, for which you care. 

Through prayer our hearts become elevated, our 
moral tone improved, and our impulses strengthened 
for the performance of good and noble deeds. 

King David, who taught all the world the language 
of prayer and praise, tells us, "It is good to sing praises 
unto our God; for it is pleasant, and praise is comely." 
And, lest we should think that the Great Creator of the 
universe would not hearken to our prayers, he tells us, 
"The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to 
all that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfil the desire 
of them that fear Him ; He also will hear their cry, and 
will save them." 

There are many who say that we cannot hope to 
alter the pre-ordained design and intention of God by 
our feeble prayers. But the same objection might be 
raised against all human exertion. 

Shall we then cease to be industrious or ambitious, 
simply because we cannot see the effect of our efforts 
at once ? 

Prayer may be one of the means ordained by God to 
produce the legitimate ends we long for. God delights 
in granting such of our prayers as are worthy prayers, 
as a kind father dehghts in granting the reasonable 



76 Israel's faith. 

wishes of his children. Certainly this is the case with 
all prayers which we sincerely offer for our own moral 
improvement. 

It may seem rather strange that the Law of Moses, 
which tells us so many things, does not tell us what 
prayers we should say. It gives us full particulars of 
the sacrifices, but ordains very few forms of prayer. In 
the twenty-first chapter of Deuteronomy, may he read 
a special prayer, to be said if a man be found slain, and 
his murderer cannot be discovered; and, in the twenty- 
sixth chapter of the same book, there are prayers which 
were to be said on bringing the first-fruits, and on offer- 
ing the tithes; but these are rather confessions than 
prayers. Besides these, there are really no forms of 
prayer specially ordained in the Law of Moses. 

Why was this ? Because prayers were to he the natural 
outpouring oj the heart. In later times, forms of prayer 
were composed for common use, and certain Psalms 
were sung in the Temple by the Levites. Later still, 
when the Jews returned from the captivity, Ezra, aided 
by the prophets and scribes of his time, prescribed the 
Order of Service, consisting principally of the prayers 
and psalms then in common use; and these are to be 
found in our prayer-book, together with very many 
others of much later date, all in Hebrew, except a few 
which, having been composed in Babylon, during the 
dispersion, were written in the Aramaic or Chaldee dia- 
lect, then the mother-tongue of the exiled Jews. 

One may readily understand why our prayer-book 
should be in Hebrew. It is not only our own language, 



SACRIFICE AND PRAYER. 77 

but the language in which God spake to our forefathers; 
and it is the language which is still used by milUons of 
our brethren, in many countries. And, though these 
prayers are only forms of prayer, there is much in the 
reflection that they are the same that have been used by 
our people in their synagogues, and their homes, dur- 
ing many generations, and that they have served during 
so many ages to bring pious and holy thoughts into the 
minds and hearts of miUions of our forefathers, and to 
comfort them in their sorrows. 

But all these prayers are of no avail, unless, in pray- 
ing, we add to these set forms, composed by other 
people, prayers of your own, which need not be in He- 
brew, and need not even be in words — I mean, loving 
thoughts of God, grateful thoughts for all His kindness 
toward you; hopes that He will guide us and give us 
strength to do our duty and resist temptation; and 
help us to improve day by day, and so enable us, small 
and humble though we be, to work His will on earth, 
and earn a place in the life to come. 



CHAPTER V. 



SABBATHS AND FESTIVALS. 



Religion consists of two parts — belief and observ- 
ance; belief being the act of the mind, observance the 
act of the body with the help of the mind. The first 
religious observances — sacrifice and prayer — arose from 
men's anxiety to do something to show their gratitude 
to God. 

It was found necessary to fix particular periods and 
seasons when men should rest from their daily labors, 
so as to enable them to turn their thoughts to God and 
to His service ; and it was for this reason that the Sab- 
bath and Festivals were instituted. 

In fixing those particular days for His service, God 
wisely set hounds and limits to the religious fervor of 
men. We are not to spend our entire time in penance 
and in prayer; we are meant to work, and rehgion helps 
to sanctify our work. The Commandment declares: 
*'Six days shalt thou labor. ^"^ Work was to be a duty, 
and a holy life was to be no excuse for a lazy life. 

The Sabbath. 

The Law of the Sabbath is many times repeated in 
the Books of Moses. Though the wording of the Com- 
mandment differs sHghtly in some places, the principle 

78 



SABBATHS AND FESTIVALS. 79 

is the same in all — rest on the Sabbath-day for every- 
one, for yourselves, your household, your servants, and 
your cattle. 

The Bible tells us that the Sabbath is a sign betv^een 
God and ourselves throughout all generations, and this 
continues to be true even to this day. The observance 
of the Sabbath is truly a "sign" — it is truly a test 
whether a man is one of God's chosen people. The 
man who, though he may incur great loss or incon- 
venience thereby, always keeps holy the Sabbath-day, 
shows himself to be a really sincere Jew. It is a ''sign" 
between the Jew and his God. It is a sign that God 
looks upon Israel as His chosen people, and that the 
IsraeHte looks upon God as the Guardian of himself 
and of his race, the Source of all earthly blessings, the 
Sustainer of every Hving creature. 

And so the Jew brings a sacrifice of one-seventh por- 
tion of his time to the observance of the Holy Sabbath, 
in the sure hope and confidence that the time so given 
to God will not be lost; in the perfect trust that He who 
ordained the Sabbath will not bring to poverty or want 
those who keep His Sabbath holy. 

The Feast oj Passover. 

All nations have certain days in the year which they 
celebrate as anniversaries. Just as we observe our 
birthday every year, so nations celebrate, each year, 
the events which they call to mind with pride or pleas- 
ure. 

The early history of Israel was full of events worthy 



8o ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

to be remembered. The departure from Egypt, the 
giving of the Law, the travels in the wilderness — these 
were events worth remembering, and they were to be 
celebrated, not by cruel sports, not by races, not by riot- 
ous feasts, as is customary among many modern peo- 
ple, but by joyful thanksgiving, and by charitable deeds. 

Now, why do we keep the Passover festival ? Simply 
to recall the great deliverance of our fathers from the 
bondage of Egypt ? Let us see : 

We, who Hve in this happy land, free to worship God 
according to our conscience, free to do as we please, to 
go where we please, to work as we please, can hardly 
imagine what it was to live, as did our forefathers in 
Egypt, under the rule of the wicked Pharaohs. To be 
slaves ; to be obliged to work not for ourselves, but for 
others; to have nothing of our own; to be beaten by 
cruel taskmasters, who give impossible tasks; to work 
in fear and dread, without hope and without the com- 
forts and joys of home — this was the experience of the 
poor IsraeHtes. And, worse than all, the Hves of their 
children were not safe ; for the cruel King, at one time, 
doomed them to destruction. Such was the state of 
bondage from which God delivered them. 

But why should we, year after year, and after so 
many centuries, call to mind, by the observance of 
Passover, these terrible trials of our forefathers? To 
show our gratitude to God, is doubtless one reason. 
But there is yet another reason — to declare to the world 
the right of man to be free. Passover is the Festival of 
Freedom. We read the history of our ancestors in 



SABBATHS AND FESTIVALS. 8 1 

Egypt, and relate their wonderful deliverance and the 
fall of the tyrant who had oppressed them; and we 
thereby declare that God ordained Man to be free — 
free in body, and free in mind, and we offer a warning 
to slave-owners, to tyrants, and to oppressors, that God 
will break their power. 

For people are not everywhere free and happy as we 
are. Slavery still exists in many parts of the world. 
There are many countries where Jews are still oppressed, 
their lives and their property in constant danger; where 
our people cannot meet for pubHc worship, nor even 
permit it to be known that they are Jews. 

By Grace of God, Israel has lived through all perse- 
cution, and is, to-day, as strong as ever. Pow^r after 
power has perished, nation after nation has disap- 
peared; but Israel alone has remained alive through all 
these thousands of years ; and, year after year, celebrates 
with joy and gladness and gratitude the great Festival 
of Freedom. 

We know how the festival is celebrated; how, be- 
fore the festival begins, the home is cleansed from 
leaven, so that no particle of it remains ; Seder night is 
observed, every household joining in solemn prayer and 
praise, reading the narrative of the Exodus, seated 
around the table containing the Paschal Lamb, the un- 
leavened bread, and the bitter herbs ; how at that table 
all sit as equals, parents and children, master and ser- 
vant, host and guest; how, for more than a week, un- 
leavened bread is eaten, and no leaven is allowed in our 
homes; how we meet in the Synagogue to praise God 

6 



82 Israel's faith. 

for His mercies; and how, on the seventh day of the 
Festival, we read the story of the wonderful passage of 
the Red Sea, and sing the Song of Moses in the same 
words used by our forefathers. 

When you eat the unleavened bread, which is called 
''the bread of affliction," think of the first unleavened 
bread which our forefathers made in their hurried de- 
parture from Egypt; when you eat the bitter herbs, 
think of the bitter hardships our ancestors suffered in 
the ''land of bondage." How thankful you must feel 
that you are free and happy; that you are Jews and 
Jewesses, openly declaring before the world the great- 
ness, goodness, and glory of God, for you are the living 
witnesses of His greatness, goodness, and glory ! Every 
Passover, for thousands of years, those same words of 
prayer and praise have been sung, which you sing; those 
same customs have been observed which you observe; 
thus making you feel as if you yourselves had just come 
out of Egypt, the objects of God's bounty and mercy. 

The Feast oj Weeks. 

On the second day of Passover, when the sickle was 
first put to the com, and the wheat harvest began, the 
IsraeHtes were to bring as an offering "a sheaf of the 
first-fruits of the harvest." For seven weeks afterward 
the days were to be counted, and on the fiftieth day, 
when the seven weeks were over, the Feast of Weeks 
was to be kept. The " first of the first-fruits " was to be 
brought to the House of the Lord; and so this festival 



SABBATHS AND FESTIVALS. S^ 

is not only called ''the Feast of Weeks," but also Sha- 
buoth, or ''the Day of First-fruits." 

In Palestine the summer is much earHer than here. 
The barley was ripe at the Passover season, and the 
corn ^Yas gathered in when the Feast of Weeks had 
arrived. On this festival the first-fruit offering was 
brought into the Temple. 

A remarkable prayer was recited, when the first- 
fruits were brought to the Temple by each Israehte. It 
concludes with the words, "And now, behold, I have 
brought the first-fruits of the land which Thou, O 
Lord, hast given me." It is to be found in Deuteron- 
omy, ch. xx\d, verses 2-10. 

These last words emphasize that great principle of 
our rehgion — the recognition of God in every act of our 
life, in every good thing that we receive, in every hap- 
piness that we enjoy. 

The prosperous farmer, fresh from his han^est-field, 
might feel puffed up with a sense of his importance, 
might grow too proud of his possessions, and might 
think that it is to his own industr}^ and talent that all 
his wealth is due. But the Day of the First-fruits draws 
near. He obeys the Di\dne command and brings his 
offering to the Holy place. He joins the procession 
which came from every city and \illage of Palestine, 
bringing to the Temple of Jerusalem the choicest first- 
fruits, decked mth the finest flowers, amid the sound of 
music and the voice of song, echoing the words, "O 
come, let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God." No 
matter how rich he may be, he himself must carry on 



84 Israel's faith. 

his shoulder his own first-fruit, and, standing before the 
priest, he recites the ordained prayer, and finishes with 
the words, "And now, behold, I have brought the first- 
fruits of the land which Thou, O Lord, hast given me!" 
The boast half rising to the lips of the successful farmer, 
would be suppressed at the humble confession of his 
lowly origin, and at the prayer which acknowledges God 
as the Source of all good. 

To us, who Hve in a climate where the wheat-harvest 
is gathered several months later than in Palestine, the 
Feast of Weeks, held in May or June, can present only 
a shadow of its former beauty; and instead of bringing, 
Hke our ancestors, our first-fruits, we are forced to con- 
tent ourselves with adorning our synagogues with choice 
flowers as a memorial of Nature's bounty and God's 
loving kindness. 

But, from another point of view, the Feast of Weeks 
is as much to us as ever it was to our forefathers. It is 
the anniversary of the giving of the Law on Sinai, the 
anniversary of the greatest event that the world has ever 
witnessed — the Revelation of God to His people, Israel. 

The Feast oj Booths. 

We are commanded to dwell in booths lor seven days, 
commencing on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, 
to remind us that God caused the children of Israel to 
dwell in booths when He led them out of the land of 
Egypt. These seven days are the Feast of Booths, and 
the eighth day was ordained to be kept as a ** solemn 
assembly." 



SABBATHS AND FESTIVALS. 85 

We are commanded, too, to take on the first day of 
the festival ''the fruit of a goodly tree (the citron), the 
branches of pahn-trees, the boughs of thick-leaved 
trees (the myrtle), and willows of the brook, and to re- 
joice before the Lord seven days." 

It is interesting to read in the Book of Nehemiah how, 
after a long interval of neglect, this Festival was ob- 
served by our ancestors under Ezra, the scribe; how 
they pubhshed and proclaimed in all their cities and in 
Jerusalem saying: " Go forth unto the mount and fetch 
oHve-branches, and pine-branches, and myrtle-branches 
and palm-branches, and branches of thick trees to make 
booths, as it is written," and how the people went forth 
and brought them, and made themselves booths every- 
one upon the roof of his house, and in the courts, and in 
the Court of the House of God. 

In this cHmate it happens, unfortunately, that the 
season when the Festival falls is usually a rainy time of 
the year; and thus the command to dwell in booths or 
temporary huts is not so generally observed by our peo- 
ple as it should be. But there are yet many zealous 
Jews in this country who, in spite of the great incon- 
venience, yet make an effort to observe the command as 
ordained; and who erect tabernacles wherein they eat 
their meals and spend a portion of their time during the 
Festival. Those who can afford it, decorate their Tab- 
ernacles with lamps and pictures and flowers and fruits, 
making the Httle home truly a thing of beauty. The 
Law of Moses does not tell us how to make a Succah or 
booth ; but, according to tradition, the main feature of 



86 

the Succah is the roof, which must be formed of green 
leaves, arranged in such a manner that the sky may be 
seen between the leaves, so as to indicate the temporary 
character of the structure, as distinguished from the 
permanent ceiHng of an ordinary dwelling. 

It is not only to remind us of the wanderings of our 
ancestors in the wilderness, but also to bring to our 
minds thoughts^ of gratitude toward God, who favors us 
with His bounty. At the feast of ingathering, when we 
might perhaps be filled with pride at our worldly suc- 
cess, we are told to leave our warm, substantial homes, 
and to take up our abode in the frail booth, roofed Hke 
the hut of a wanderer. 

Looking at this leafy roof, we see the sky, and call to 
mind the Heavenly Hand that made and fashioned us, 
and gave us all we have: we see the starry hosts of 
heaven, and understand our own nothingness ; and the 
frail covering, which scarcely keeps out rain and wind, 
makes us think of those poor distressed creatures who 
would have no roof to shelter them, but for our timely 
aid. 

The beautiful trophies of nature, too, which we are 
commanded to take during the Festival, are meant to 
lead us to like thoughts of duty, and gratitude. The 
palm, emblem of uprightness; the citron and myrtle, 
emblems of that charity that spreads its fragrance far 
and wide, giving much and yet losing nothing; and the 
willow, emblem of true humihty — these choice gifts of 
nature we are to gather, and, looking at them, learn 
from them a holy lesson. 



SABBATHS AND FESTIVALS. 87 

And in all our rejoicings we are to be mindful of 
others besides ourselves. Not only "shalt thou re- 
joice," says the Bible; but "thy man-servant, and thy 
maid-servant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the 
fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates," 
are to share the bounties of nature, and to take part in 
the joys of the happy harvest-home. 

It is the custom of the synagogue to signaHze the close 
of these holydays by a celebration, thoroughly charac- 
teristic of our rehgion, known as Simchath Torah, "the 
rejoicing in the Law." On this occasion the synagogue 
is made to wear its m^ost festive aspect; the sacred 
scrolls of the Law, decked in gorgeous vestments, are 
carried in procession round the holy edifice, even little 
children participating, while hymns of praise and thanks- 
giving, attuned to joyous music, testify our gratitude 
to God for His goodness in having permitted us again 
to complete the reading of that Law which is our great- 
est treasure. 



CHAPTER VI. 



" In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have 
a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation. 
Ye shall do no servile work therein." — Lev. xxiii, 24, 25. 

God ordained the New Year's Festival to be a Day 
of Memorial, or Day of Remembrance; that is to say, 
a day on which He calls to mind everything we have 
done during the past year, and passes judgment on us 
according to our work. And, as He has placed within 
every one of us a conscience, He ordained that on that 
day the shofar (ram's horn) should be sounded to awaken 
that conscience, so that all of us may, on that day, con- 
sider our acts, examine our own conduct, and judge 
ourselves truthfully, even as God judges us. 

The duty of self-examination and self-judgment is 
one of the greatest of the duties we owe to ourselves; 
and it is right that we should perform this duty not 
merely once a year, on the Day of Memorial, but every 
night when we retire to rest. King David tells us, 
*' Stand in awe, and sin not; commune with your heart 
upon your bed," in the silence of night. 

Some of us will, no doubt, fancy such frequent self- 
examination quite unnecessary, and may think it likely 
to make us too serious and miserable. But this is a 

88 



NEW year's and atonement DAYS. 89 

mistake. Every morning, and perhaps twice or thrice 
a day, we are accustomed to look at ourselves in the 
glass, to see if we are clean and tidy, and when we are 
satisfied with our appearance, the sight does not make 
us miserable or serious — perhaps, quite the reverse. 
And so, if the examination of our acts and thoughts, 
and the judgment of our conscience be satisfactory, and 
we feel good and clean and spotless in the sight of God, 
the result is increased happiness. 

But God, knowing how apt we are to forget this 
great duty of self-examination, ordained the Day of 
Memorial, so that, at least once a year, we should be 
judged by Himself and our conscience, and so be pre- 
pared for the great Day of Atonement, which is to fol- 
low nine days after. The S ho far (ram's horn), sound- 
ing its plaintive and tremulous notes in the synagogue, 
is meant to arouse us from our fancied security, to 
awake our slumbering conscience, to remind us of our 
position. Year by year we are expected to improve, 
not alone in education and worldly knowledge, but in 
heart and mind and soul. Every year, as we grow older, 
and draw nearer to that day which will be the close of 
our life here and the opening of new life in the world to 
come, we are expected to become purer and nobler in 
spirit; every year to have fewer faults and greater vir- 
tues; every year to grow more godly; and, as each Day 
of Memorial comes round, we have to satisfy ourself 
that this improvement is taking place in our soul, in 
that part of us which is immortal. 

But if not, what then ? If, when the trumpet sounds 



go Israel's faith. 

and we review our ways and works, and examine our 
heart and soul, we find duties neglected, bad passions 
encouraged, vices increased, days wasted — what then? 
Shall we, in despair, go deeper and deeper into wicked- 
ness? Shall we waste our time in useless tears? No. 
God has opened to us the door of escape from evil, has 
given us the power of repentance and the chance of for- 
giveness and reconciliation, by ordaining for that pur- 
pose His great Day of Atonement. ''For on that day 
shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you, that 
you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord." 

The Day of Atonement is the hoHest day of the 
year, the day which we give entirely to God and to the 
purifying of our soul by repentance. During that day 
no thought of the world or of its profits and pleasures 
may enter our minds. We are to spend the whole day 
in meditation and prayer. We are to afflict ourselves; 
and tradition has ordained that part of that affiiction 
shall consist in abstaining from food and drink from 
sunset to sunset. For one whole day we are to forget 
our body, and to think only of our soul — that "Hving 
soul" which God planted within us, when He breathed 
into our nostrils the breath of life. 

Just as we feel how refreshing it is to take a bath, to 
cleanse our body from impurity, so must we feel how 
refreshing it is to take means for purifying our soul, and 
causing our transgressions to pass away year by year, so 
that, at least once a year, " we may be clean from all our 
sins before the Lord." 

And truly it is a great privilege, that God should have 



NEW year's and atonement DAYS. 91 

given us the great Day of Atonement, to remove from 
the soul the burden of sin, so that every year we may, as 
it were, begin a new Hfe with a clean and spotless soul 
and a light and joyful heart. 

How shall we celebrate the Day of Atonement so as 
to receive pardon for our sins ? 

The Bible tells us how this may be done. By con- 
fession, by penitence, by prayer, and by good deeds. 
In our prayer-book is to be found the form of pubHc 
confession of sins, which probably includes every pos- 
sible kind of transgression. But although it is right that 
every Jew, worshipping in pubHc, should join with his 
fellow-worshippers in one general form of confession, 
yet this is not the confession w^hich can satisfy us as in- 
dividuals. Each one of us must make a confession of his 
own special sins, not to a priest, as is the custom with 
members of other faiths, but to God and to ourselves. 

Confession is the first step tow^ard betterment. We 
must feel and own that we are wrong, before we are 
Hkely to cease our wrong-doing. And the confession 
must be accompanied by a firm resolution never to re- 
peat the wrong, and, so far as may be possible, to repair 
its effects. 

Penitence, then, does not consist (as many think it 
does), of mere sorrowful prayers for forgiveness, nor of 
mere empty confession. There must be active peni- 
tence, reparation for the past, and resolution for the fut- 
ure. If we have injured or offended our neighbor, the 
injury or offence must be made good, before we can 
hope for forgiveness; and if the wrong has been the 



92 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

neglect of a duty, we must do our best, by our future 
efforts, to remedy the effects of our neglect. This is the 
true penitence of the Day of Atonement. It is httle 
better than a superstition — indeed it is a superstition — 
to suppose that our iniquities are removed by a miracle, 
as the result of our prayers and our fasting. The prayers 
and the fasting are aids to true penitence, for they bring 
the penitent to a proper frame of mind. But they are 
useless, unless accompanied by some practical good, 
such as reparation and works of charity and mercy. 
The old Jewish sages tell us that "The Day of Atone- 
ment expiates sins between man and his Maker, but not 
sins betv/een man and man; for these, the only atone- 
ment is the redress oj the in jury. ^^ 

Isaiah the prophet has indeed well expressed the 
meaning and value of the solemn Day of Atonement 
when he wrote these stirring words : 

" Is it such a fast that I have chosen ? a day for a man 
to afflict his soul ? is it to bow down his head as a bul- 
rush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? 
wilt thou call this a fast and an acceptable day unto the 
Lord?" 

''Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the 
bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to 
let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke ? " 

" Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that 
thou bring the poor that are cast out into thy house? 
when thou seest the naked that thou cover him, and that 
thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh ? 

''Then shall thy Hght break forth as the morning, and 



NEW year's and atonement DAYS. 93 

thine health shall spring forth speedily; and thy right- 
eousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord 
shall be thy rearward." 

''Then shalt thou call and the Lord shall answer; 
thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am." 

Observed in this spirit, the Day of Atonement cannot 
fail to work such blessed changes within us as will in- 
fluence our lives for our own good, and for the welfare 
of our fellow-men. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SOCIAL DUTIES. 

After God had given the Ten Commandments, He 
gave to Moses a series of "judgments," that is to say, 
the laws which were to regulate their manners and their 
deahngs with one another. God might have said in a 
few words, "Be just and kind to each other;" and this 
would have included everything. But it would not have 
been sufficiently practical; so it was necessary to go 
into detail. 

Laws relating to Servitude. 

The first series of these judgments referred to slav- 
ery, or more properly to servitude. Now, it might be 
supposed that one of the first laws that would have been 
given to a nation just released from slavery would have 
been a law for putting an end to all sorts of bondage. 
Indeed, many writers who have looked only on the sur- 
face, have regarded the Mosaic Law as cruel, because 
they beheve that it permitted slavery. But it will be seen 
that slavery, in the sense in which we understand it, 
was distinctly prohibited. God ordains that "he that 
stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his 
hand, he shall surely be put to death." So slavery, such 
as existed until lately in some parts of America, and 

94 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 95 

such as still exists in certain Spanish possessions and in 
parts of Asia and Africa, never could have existed ; for 
it was an act punishable by death to steal a human 
being. 

Still there was a mild kind of slavery permitted. First, 
strangers who were taken prisoners of war could be 
bought and sold as bondsmen. Secondly, Hebrews 
who had been found guilty of certain crimes were sen- 
tenced to penal servitude, and were Hable to be sold as 
slaves, but for no longer than six years, unless they, of 
their own accord, renewed their servitude. " In the sev- 
enth year he shall go out free for nothing." Thirdly, 
Hebrews, who had become so poor that they could not 
support themselves or their famiHes, might sell them- 
selves into servitude; but their servitude would also ex- 
pire at the end of the sixth year, unless voluntarily re- 
newed. 

No unkindness of any sort was permitted toward ser- 
vants or slaves. A runaway slave might not be captured 
and restored to his master. If a master struck his ser- 
vant or slave, and injured him, however sHghtly, he was 
obHged to let him go free. And when the time of servi- 
tude was over, the Hebrew slave or servant did not go 
out into the world empty-handed. He was to have 
enough to enable him to re-commence his life of free- 
dom. "Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy 
flock and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress ; of 
that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, 
thou shalt give unto him : and thou shalt remember that 
thou wast a bondsman in the land of Egypt, and the 



96 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

Lord thy God redeemed thee, therefore I command 
thee this thing to-day." 

Now we understand why the laws of slavery or 
servitude were the first of the judgments given to the 
Israelites. God reminds us, You have yourselves been 
bondsmen; remember, when you become masters, not 
to be tyrants, like the Egyptians, but to be kind and 
merciful to those who have to serve you. 

Protection oj Lije and Limb. 

If a man killed another intentionally, ''with guile," 
it was wilful murder, and he was surely to be put to 
death. But if a man killed another by accident, then 
he was to be exiled to one of the cities of refuge, where 
his life was to be safe from the ''avenger of blood." 
This exile must have been a terrible punishment for 
carelessness, and must have prevented many of those 
accidental deaths, which now too commonly occur 
from negligence and want of thought. 

In olden times, and even in modern times, among 
barbarous nations, it was the custom for the nearest 
relative of a person killed, either intentionally or by ac- 
cident, to be "the avenger of blood," and to slay him 
who had caused his relative's death. The humane Mo- 
saic code permitted this revenge to be carried out only 
when the death was the result of a wilful act, clearly 
proved; and the avenger of blood was not allowed to 
follow to the city of refuge, and to slay the man who 
had been guilty of manslaughter, or accidental killing. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 97 

Even the life of the murderer was not to be sacrificed, 
without an absolutely certain proof of his guilt. He 
could be put to death only on the evidence of at least 
two vdtnesses, and these were bound to be eye-witnesses, 
not merely witnesses bringing circumstantial evidence, 
or facts tending to criminate the accused, but actual 
eye-witnesses of the crime. 

Other crimes besides murder were punishable by 
death, such as blasphemy (or speaking disrespectfully 
of God), worshipping strange gods, Sabbath-breaking, 
striking a parent, cursing a parent, man-stealing and 
practising witchcraft ; but the punishment of death was 
so hemmed in by laws of evidence, all in favor of the 
accused, especially by the law requiring two eye-wit- 
nesses of the guilt, that an execution was a very rare oc- 
currence, and the death-punishment might rather be re- 
garded as a preventive — a terror to evil-doers — than a 
social revenge. 

The laws relating to personal injuries, not invohdng 
death, have frequently been decried as barbarous. The 
words used in the Bible are, ''Eye for eye; tooth for 
tooth; hand for hand; foot for foot. Burning for burn- 
ing; wound for wound; stripe for stripe." 

It will be readily understood that this law must have 
been a terror to evil-doers, and must have prevented 
many an act of violence. At first sight, it seems to foster 
the passion for revenge. But in reahty it manifests a 
spirit of mercy. In an age when strong passions and 
lawlessness prevailed, no better means could have been 
adopted than this for curbing the spirit of "might 
7 



98 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

against right," and for protecting the weak against the 
strong. 

Before the giving of the Law, it frequently occurred 
that the man who had suffered an injury, would him- 
self, or through his relatives, inflict the like injury upon 
the offender. A sort of lynch-law prevailed, such as 
even now prevails in some parts of Italy, Corsica, and 
Sicily, where the principle of personal revenge known 
as *'vendeUa^^ exists. The Mosaic law steps in between 
the injured party and the offender, and declares that 
the offence must first be proved according to strict rules 
of evidence, and, if proved, must be regarded as an of- 
fence against society, which no longer the individual, but 
the strong arm of the law must avenge. It was to be no 
longer a case of private revenge, which might overstep 
the bounds of justice, and mete out a punishment dis- 
proportionate to the offence. It was to be a case of calm, 
dehberate decision by the judges, according to strict 
rules of evidence, and the punishment was to be no 
greater than the offence. 

It is absolutely certain that the law of ''eye for eye" 
was never really enforced. It was intended rather as a 
threat to prevent crimes of violence, and to indicate the 
extent of the debt due by the perpetrator to his victim. 
And be it understood, that the law only referred to cases 
of personal injury intentionally inflicted. The infliction 
of accidental injury, or even of injuries resulting from a 
fair fight, was punished differently. The offender was, 
in such cases, to pay fair compensation, the amount be- 
ing determined by the judges. We find that if two men 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 99 

fight, and one injures the other, "and he die not, but 
keepeth his bed, if he rise again, and walk abroad upon 
his staff, then shall he that smote him be quit; only he 
shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him to 
be thoroughly healed." 

The Hke principle of compensation is enforced in the 
cases of injuries resulting from negUgence. If an ox, 
known to have been mischievous, gored a man to death, 
the ox was destroyed, the owner was considered re- 
sponsible, and deserving of the punishment of death: 
but he was allowed, in this case, to give compensation to 
the family of the victim, in lieu of inflicting the punish- 
ment of death on the careless owner of the ox. 

If an ox injured a servant, the owner of the ox was 
bound to pay compensation to the master for the loss of 
service, and the ox was to be killed. It must be under- 
stood that in all these precepts the ox is to be regarded 
only as a representative animal, being the beast most 
Hkely to inflict injury; and that similar laws were ap- 
phcable to injuries resulting from the attacks of other 
animals. 

The law of battlements is another representative law, 
having for its object the protection of human Hfe from 
possible danger. It is enacted that " when thou buildest 
a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy 
roof, that thou bring not blood upon thy house, if any 
man fall from thence." No modern code contains laws 
guarding more jealously the interest of human Hfe and 
limb. The law just referred to doubtless had greater 
significance in oriental countries, where most of the roofs 



lOO ISRAEL S FAITH. 

are flat, and where people walk about on the housetops. 
But the law equally appHes to other places besides roofs, 
and indicates that any source of possible danger to life 
must be carefully and rehgiously avoided. 

Rights oj Property. 

It was declared unlawful to remove any boundary 
mark, defining the ancient limits of land; for the re- 
moval of such land-mark might rob a neighbor of part 
of his possessions. 

It was declared unlawful to appropriate any lost prop- 
erty ; and the finder was bound to search out the owner, 
and restore the property to him. 

The master might not keep back the wages of his ser- 
vant, but was bound to pay him promptly. 

Any injury done by leaving an open pit unprotected, 
had to be paid for by the careless owner of the pit. 

If one ox killed another, the owners of the two oxen 
were to share the dead and living animals; but if the 
assailing ox was known to have been previously mis- 
chievous, and the owner had not tied him up, he had 
to pay ox for ox, but the dead animal became his 
property. 

Compensation was to be made for any injury, to a 
field or to a vineyard, caused by straying cattle ; and in 
case of the accidental burning of standing crops, the 
person who kindled the fire had to make restitution. 

If an animal or other property, deposited with any- 
one, was lost or stolen, damaged or destroyed, and the 



SOCIAL DUTIES. lOI 

delinquent could not be discovered, he who had taken 
charge of the property had to be put on trial; and if he 
satisfied the judges by a statement on oath that he had 
not himself been the cause of the loss, theft, or damage, 
he was absolved. But he had to make good the loss, if 
the animal or property had been lent to him, the actual 
owner not being present. 

The rights of property might not be unduly or 
harshly enforced against the very poor, or against the 
hungry wayfarer. Those who had occasion to work in, 
or were passing through, a vineyard, might eat some of 
the grapes, but might not carry any away with them. 
And a man passing through a cornfield might pluck a 
few ears of corn with his hand, and eat them; but he 
was not allowed to cut any with his sickle, and to re- 
move them in bulk. 

Rights 0} Poverty. 

The Poor Law of the Mosaic code gave the poor cer- 
tain rights, whereby they might sustain Hfe, and even 
recover their lost position. 

Charity has always been looked upon by our race as 
a cardinal virtue. Even the enemies of our faith have 
always regarded the charity of the Jews as their great- 
est merit; and the care they have bestowed upon their 
poor has ever evoked the wonder and admiration of the 
Gentile world. 

However, the charity of our people has probably not 
been due to mere sentiment, but rather to a habit — the 
result of the action of our poor-laws — the result, too, of 



102 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

the fact that the poor, in accordance with those laws, 
occupy a recognized position among us. 

''The poor shall never cease out of the land; there- 
fore, I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine 
hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor and to thy 
needy in thy land." 

These words left much to the HberaUty of the indi- 
vidual; but there were certain rights which the poor 
possessed independently of such liberality. The glean- 
ings of the field were not to be gathered by the farmer, 
nor was he permitted to reap the com standing in the 
comers of the fields. These were to be left for the 
widow, the fatherless, and the stranger. So, too, the 
forgotten sheaf, the gleanings of the oHveyard and vine- 
yard, and their second crop, were to be left for the poor 
and the stranger. We are enjoined to lend money to 
the poor, a loan being less humiliating than a gift; and 
a loan to any of our own people must invariably be with- 
out interest. " Thou shalt not give him thy money upon 
interest, nor lend him thy victuals for increase." Inter- 
est was allowed to be charged to a non-Israehte, if the 
money was borrowed for mercantile purposes; but it 
was not allowed to be charged, if the debt was incurred 
by a stranger who had fallen into poverty, or who re- 
quired help for his subsistence. 

At the end of every seven years a debt was cancelled. 
"Every creditor that lendeth aught unto his neighbor 
shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbor or 
of his brother, because it is the Lord's release. Of a for- 
eigner thou mayest exact it again." But even against 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 103 

the foreigner no act of oppression was allowed. ''Thou 
shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for ye were 
strangers in the land of Egypt." Nor was the thought 
of the year of release, and the possible loss of the money, 
to weigh with the lender. "Beware that there be not a 
wicked thought in thy heart, saying. The seventh year, 
the year of release is at hand, and thine eye be e\il 
against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; 
and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto 
thee. Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall 
not be grieved, when thou givest unto him." 

Again it is said, "Thou shalt not harden thine heart, 
nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother." Nor was 
the lender, who took security for a loan, to retain the 
article pledged, if it was an article of necessity : " If thou 
at all take thy neighbor's raiment to pledge, thou shalt 
deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth dovni. For that 
is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin : where- 
in shall he sleep?" A widow's raiment might not be 
taken in pledge, nor might any implement of daily la- 
bor be accepted as a security. 

But the greatest of the rights of poverty was enforced 
by the law of Tithe. Besides the tithe of all produce, 
which was annually given to the Levites, the Israelite 
was obHged to bring every third year the tenth part of 
his increase for the use of the poor. " At the end of three 
years, thou shalt bring forth all the tithes of thine in- 
crease the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy 
gates: And the Levite (because he hath no part or in- 
heritance v^th thee) and the stranger, and the father- 



I04 Israel's faith. 

less, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall 
come and shall eat and be satisfied; that the Lord thy 
God may bless thee in all the work of thy hand which 
thou doest." In every city, storehouses were estab- 
lished for the reception of the tithe, and from this re- 
serve the needy were enabled to draw when misfortune 
befell them. 

But even these were not the only rights of poverty. 
The year of release was also the sabbatical year, the 
year in which the land rested. Although during the 
sabbatical year the farmer was not doomed to idleness 
(for he could dig water-tanks, erect farm buildings, con- 
struct terraces for his vineyards, repair his hedges and 
boundary walls), the land had to rest, so as to recruit its 
exhausted strength. No seed was then sown, no vine- 
yard pruned, and no fruit gathered by the owner, the 
produce of the sixth year being always sufficient for the 
consumption of three years. But, though the land was 
wholly to rest on the seventh year, the crops still grew, 
the fruits still ripened. All these crops and fruits be- 
longed to the poor, and this beneficent arrangement 
probably enabled them to clear themselves of debt by 
payment, when their sense of honor would not permit 
the year of release to wipe off their obligation to their 
creditors. 

The Land Laws. 

Every fiftieth year, the year of Jubilee, all land that 
had been sold reverted to the original owner, or to his 
family. So the family of the poor man, who had been 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 105 

compelled to sell his possessions, became again pos- 
sessed of worldly means ; and thus the institution of the 
Jubilee, at a time when land was the chief item of 
wealth, prevented that cardinal evil of civilized life, the 
concentration of wealth in the few, to the detriment of 
the many — a circumstance that gives rise to those ter- 
rible contrasts of modern society, excessive wealth and 
excessive poverty. 

Except houses in walled cities, which could be sold as 
a perpetual possession, no landed property could be 
sold as freehold, "for the land is Mine," saith the Lord. 
We are told in the Book of Joshua, how, when the Is- 
raelites had arrived in the Promised Land and con- 
quered it, the country was divided by lot among the 
various tribes, and each man had his share. Thus, at 
the outset, every one possessed his parcel of land. Now, 
if a man became poor and sold his land, he or his rela- 
tives might, if they had the means, at any time repur- 
chase it, paying for it according to the number of years 
that had to run to the Jubilee. Even a house in a walled 
city, which might be sold forever, could be repurchased 
at the same price by the original owner, at any time 
within a year of the sale. But, however poor he and 
his descendants might be, in the year of the Jubilee the 
land must revert to them, and so their poverty would 
not be lasting. 

All these laws tended to check the greed for acquiring 
land, seemingly one of the appetites of man, which, if 
indulged in excess, must tend to the prejudice of his 
fellow- creatures. 



I06 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 



Education. 



In these days, when education is becoming general, 
it is refreshing to turn back to the Mosaic code, and see 
what provision was there made for the instruction of 
the young, and especially for their reHgious education. 

The Levites were the appointed instructors of the 
people: ''they shall teach Jacob Thy judgments, and 
Israel Thy law." From the age of twenty-five to fifty 
they performed the service of God in the Tabernacle or 
Temple, and after the age of fifty, "they ceased waiting 
upon the service," but "ministered with their brethren 
in the Tabernacle of the congregation to keep the 
charge." 

But though the Levites were thus ordained to be the 
ministers of rehgion and the pubHc teachers, the Holy 
Law estabHshed a principle of reHgious instruction, 
which was to be by far the most important part of edu- 
cation — the instruction of children by their parents. 
The laws of God were not to be taught solely by pubHc 
teachers. "Thou shalt teach them dihgently to thy 
children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in 
thine house, and when thou walkest by the way." It 
was to be the province of parents to instil rehgion into 
their own children, not only for the sake of the children, 
but for their own sakes. Moses tells the people, " Only 
take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul dihgently, lest 
thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and 
lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy Hfe; 
but teach them thy children, and thy children's chil- 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 107 

dren." To teach religion to our children, is to keep re- 
ligion alive, both in ourselves and in them. What teach- 
ing can be so forcible as a parent's teaching? and what 
lesson can be so impressive as the lesson given by a 
father to his children, while walking abroad with them, 
discoursing of the wonders of Nature and the will of 
Nature's God? 

And so, when God gave ordinances for the guidance 
of His chosen race, *'He established a testimony in Ja- 
cob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He com- 
manded our fathers, that they should make them known 
to their children; That the generation to come might 
know them, even the children which should be born, 
who should arise and declare them to their children; 
That they may set their hope in God, and not forget the 
works of God, but keep His commandments." 

History shows that many branches of knowledge 
have been lost, and many arts and sciences utterly for- 
gotten, because parents have neglected the natural duty 
of teaching their own children. This happened with the 
ancient Egyptians, greatest of all nations of antiquity in 
the arts of construction, in science and in philosophy; 
their knowledge became lost to the world, because in- 
struction was in the hands of a privileged and dominant 
class — the priests — who used their position for their 
own aggrandizement, keeping their knowledge to them- 
selves, and leaving the multitude in ignorance and su- 
perstition. So with the ancient Chinese, conspicuous 
among Eastern nations for the cultivation of science 
and literature: nearly all their knowledge w^as lost to 



io8 Israel's faith. 

the world in the like manner. But our Code maintains 
knowledge to be the heritage of the whole human race, 
and not the monopoly of priest or Levite. It declares 
that there are to be no priestly mysteries or secrets ; that 
education is a pubHc right of the whole nation as well as 
a private duty of parent to child; that all revealed 
knowledge is pubHc property; that though ''the secret 
things belong to the Lord our God, those things which 
are revealed, belong unto us and to our children for 
ever." 

Religious Toleration. 

It has been frequently charged against the Mosaic 
Code that it was wanting in mercy and toleration, inas- 
much as it preached the wholesale destruction of cer- 
tain idolatrous tribes of Canaan. The fact that the Is- 
raelites were entrusted with the duty of utterly exter- 
minating those tribes, must be candidly admitted. 
They were ordered to "save aHve nothing that breath- 
eth"; and the fact is certainly a terrible one. Even the 
women and children were to be slaughtered. 

Why this fearful carnage ? The Bible answers the 
question. The seven idolatrous tribes, the Hittites, 
Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, 
and Jebusites were to be exterminated, "that they 
teach you not to do after all their abominations, which 
they have done unto their gods." What those abomina- 
tions were we know not precisely, for the Pentateuch 
only hints at certain of these crimes too fearful to men- 
tion. "There must have been pollution in everything 



SOCIAL DUTIES. lOQ 

they touched; for we read that Moses ordered all the 
spoil of Midian to be destroyed, except such things as 
could pass through the fire, and could thus be purified. 
There are mental and moral diseases as loathsome and 
as infectious as any which affect the body. May it not 
have been even an act of supreme mercy that God, by a 
terrible act of extermination, prevented the evil from in- 
creasing and spreading, till the whole world became a 
mass of corruption?" 

When, then, we read of these fearful wars of exter- 
mination, we must not regard them as evincing any- 
thing like a want of forbearance or toleration toward 
followers of a reHgion differing from our own ; and we 
should rather seek in the Pentateuch for the special 
laws which teach us how we should treat members of 
an ahen faith. 

We are told, "Thou shalt not vex a stranger nor op- 
press him, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." 
Even the Egyptians, by whom the Israelites had been so 
unmercifully treated, were to be requited with charita- 
ble forbearance: ''Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, 
because thou wast a stranger in his land." The law 
knew no difference between Jew and Gentile. "If a 
stranger sojourn with you in your land, ye shall not vex 
him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be 
unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love 
him as thyself, for ye were strangers in the land of 
Egypt." One law shall be to him that is home-born, 
and one unto the stranger that sojourneth among 
you." 



no Israel's faith. 

A stranger was permitted to join in the Divine service 
of the Tabernacle and Temple, and was even allowed 
to bring an offering to the altar of God. "If a stranger 
sojourn with you, or whosoever be among you in your 
generations, and will offer an offering made by fire of a 
sweet savor unto the Lord; as ye do, so shall he do. 
One ordinance shall be both for you and also for the 
stranger that sojourneth with you, an ordinance for 
ever in your generations, as ye are, so shall be the stran- 
ger before the Lord." No lesson of religious toleration 
could be enforced in stronger terms than these. The 
Bible practically tells us, If God can thus tolerate those 
who believe not in the true religion, why should not we ? 
"He loveth the stranger in giving him food and rai- 
ment; love ye therefore the stranger." 

There is, however, a kind of spurious tolerance which 
is not the result of true philosophy or true liberality, but 
rather the effect of religious indifference. It is common 
enough to hear persons, indifferent to religion, say that 
one religion is as good as another. Against such indif- 
ference the Bible warns us. There may be no lax at- 
tachment to our religion. There must be full and com- 
plete loyalty to the One and only true God. 

That such loyalty need not detract from our toler- 
ance of the religion of others, may be best proved by 
reference to a prayer — perhaps the most remarkable in 
the whole Bible — the prayer of King Solomon at the 
dedication of the Temple. He craves the blessing of 
Heaven on the building he had raised to the glory of 
God, and begs that the prayers and supplications, that 



SOCIAL DUTIES. Ill 

- he and his people may there offer, may be favorably an- 
swered, and then he craves the same blessing for those 
who were not of his own faith: *' Moreover concerning 
the stranger which is not of Thy people Israel, but is come 
from a far country for Thy great name's sake, and Thy 
mighty hand and Thy outstretched arm; if they come 
and pray in this house ; Then hear Thou from the heav- 
ens, even from Thy dwelling-place, and do according to 
all that the stranger calleth to Thee for." We know 
from the Tahnudical and other accounts of the Temple 
that this prayer was not, as some might suppose, the 
mere individual expression of a wisely Hberal king. For 
it has been found that, surrounding the raised platform 
on which the Temple was erected, and lying between 
the outer portico and the Temple proper, there was a 
great corridor thirty cubits (forty-five feet) wide, which 
was known as the "court of Gentiles," destined for the 
worship of strangers, and that this court was many 
times larger than the '^ court of the men of Israel." 

The prayer of King Solomon, in its appHcation to the 
Gentile world, was, therefore, no dead letter. The hb- 
eral spirit which pervades this noble prayer is the spirit 
of our holy law. If that spirit had permeated the two 
creeds which have sprung from our reUgion, then his- 
tory would not have had to record, as it unfortunately 
does, so many stories of persecution, so many reigns of 
terror, so many orgies of fire and sword. 

The Jew, acting in the spirit of the Mosaic code, pro- 
claims all men equal in the sight of God ; he hopes and 
believes that the day will come when all the world will 



112 Israel's faith. 

recognize the one true God. Till then, there may be 
many religions; there can be but one morality; and so 
our sages, in the true spirit of toleration, have declared 
that " the righteous of every faith have their share in the 
world to come." 



CHAPTER VIII. 



MORAL DUTIES. 



The restraints of law may prevent men from being 
criminal, but will not make them virtuous. One con- 
stantly meets men who are seemingly good citizens, and 
who yet are bad, immoral, and irreligious men. But 
such a contradiction the Mosaic Code does not recog- 
nize. "Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God," 
perfect before God as before the world. It is not suffi- 
cient to do one's duty to the country in which we live, 
to obey its laws, to be patriotic, and to pay our dues to 
the State. No one can be a truly good citizen without 
being a virtuous man. 

Love of God. 

First among the moral duties which belong to every 
rehgion is the duty to love, fear, and revere God. It 
seems so simple a matter to love the Great Being to 
whom we owe our existence, our food, our clothing, our 
strength, our faculties, and all we possess, that obedi- 
ence to this law should be as natural as obedience 
to the appetites of hunger and thirst. But our faith 
does not permit us to indulge in a piety that costs us 
nothing, and that is a mere obedience to a natural in- 
8 113 



114 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

stinct; for we are told not merely to love God, but to 
love Him "with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and 
with all thy might." 

What does this signify ? The long array of martyrs, 
who have sacrificed their Hves for the sake of their re- 
Hgion, will afford the best interpretation of these words. 
With all our heart, the centre of our emotions ; with all 
our soul, the fountain of our thought, our reason, and 
our faith ; with all our bodily powers, with every nerve 
and every muscle that makes us beings of action — we 
are to show our love of God, and be prepared to sacri- 
fice everything for Him. 

But we Jews are no longer called upon to bear the 
crown of martyrdom — to die for our faith; how, then, 
can we show our love of God ? The Bible tells us how: 
"To keep the commandments of the Lord, and His 
statutes, which I command thee this day, for thy good." 
We have to keep the Law not only for God's glory or 
His pleasure, but for our good. How can the obedience 
of a small nation in one of His little planets profit Him, 
the Creator of the universe? "Behold the heaven, and 
the heaven of heavens is the Lord thy God's, the earth 
also and all that therein is." 

Thus, love of God means obedience to His will; and 
obedience to His will brings happiness. 

There is one great point of difference between Juda- 
ism and other rehgions. Although our reUgion un- 
doubtedly requires of us many sacrifices and restraints, 
yet Judaism is essentially a happy religion. It is not a 
religion of long faces, many fasts, and everlasting seri- 



MORAL DUTIES. II5 

ousness. Our Sabbath, for example, is not a puritanical 
Sabbath. We are not to show our love to God by mak- 
ing ourselves miserable: though we are called a "king- 
dom of priests," we are not to be a nation of monks and 
nuns. 

We are not to groan away our hves. Although sev- 
eral fast-days were instituted to commemorate sad 
events that had befallen our people, on one day only 
in the year does the Law bid us afflict our souls. We 
are to "serve the Lord with gladness, enter His pres- 
ence with a song." Our rehgion and our happiness are 
to go hand-in-hand. Our love of God and obedience to 
His laws are to make us happy. 

But though the love of God is a duty enjoined by 
every religion, there is something special about that 
duty, as enjoined upon the Jew. Other rehgions have 
their secondary deities, or demi-gods, or mediators; but 
the God of the Jew is the One sole God, the Creator of 
the universe, who w^orks by His own great power, and 
who, nevertheless, may be approached in prayer and 
suppHcation by the humblest of His creatures, without 
any mediator. And in these words does He declare His 
sovereign power: "See now that I, even I, am He, and 
there is no God with Me; I kill, and I make ahve; I 
wound, and I heal; neither is there any that can deliver 
out of My hand." 

Other faiths have regarded God as a deity who will 
not forgive without the mediation of a being, half- God, 
half-man, or that of a priest. Our religion represents 
God as a "God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, 



ii6 Israel's faith. 

and abundant In goodness and truth, keeping mercy for 
thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin," 
so that we need no one to crave pardon on our behalf. 
The priests of other faiths have invented the terrible 
idea of hell, with the devil as its presiding deity; and 
this hell they represent as a place of eternal torment for 
the souls of the wicked and the unbeliever. 

Our religion knows no such sacrilegious ideas. It 
cannot allow that God, who claims our love, and whose 
universe abounds with proofs of His kindness, can be 
capable of meting out eternal punishment to a human 
soul. It cannot conceive that the same God, who gave 
us, in His code, a true message of love, in which we are 
enjoined to be kind to our neighbors, our dependents, 
and even to the helpless brutes, could inflict everlasting 
torture on the souls of those whom He created in His 
own image. Would He, then, permit the existence of a 
devil, or god of evil, side by side with Himself, to 
counteract His goodness and to check His mercy? 
"There is no god beside Me," is the Divine declara- 
tion. 

The idea that a loving God should inflict eternal pun- 
ishment is too revolting to be even contemplated. We 
are told to fear God, to fear His displeasure, not as we 
would fear a tyrant King, but as we would fear to incur 
the displeasure of a parent, or to forfeit his love. When 
He speaks of punishing us, it is in the language of a wise 
father to an erring child. He does not threaten us with 
eternal punishment. "For a small moment have I for- 
saken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In 



MORAL DUTIES. II7 

a little wrath I hid My face from thee for a moment; 
but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, 
saith the Lord, thy Redeemer." 

This is the God we are told to love with all our heart, 
with all our soul, with all our might. Our forefathers 
were, therefore, ordered not only to worship no other 
gods, but not even to mention their names. They were 
to overthrow their altars, to break down their pillars, 
burn their groves, and hew down their graven images. 
Moreover, superstition of every sort had to be de- 
stroyed. Hence there were laws for the prevention of 
those superstitious rites, practised by the priests of idol- 
atrous nations, who recognized powers other than the 
Great Power who rules the universe. So we find the 
command against Moloch-worship, divination, witch- 
craft, the observing of times, and the other so-called 
black arts, by means of which the priests of ancient 
reHgions were wont to influence the vulgar and the 
ignorant. 

Finally, the duty of prayer, as an outward mode of ex- 
hibiting our love of God, must be the spontaneous hom- 
age of the heart ; not an irksome duty, Hke a tax unwill- 
ingly paid. It must be the voluntary outpouring of the 
heart, not alone in the set phrases of the prayer-book, 
but in the unspoken language of our soul. 

For as, at the supreme moments of Hfe, soul speaks 
to soul without word or sound or utterance, so can man, 
at all times, hold silent communion with his Maker; 
he can raise his soul upon the wings of prayer, and ren- 
der silent praise to the One and only God. 



Il8 ISRAELIS FAITH. 

Respect jor Parents and for the Aged. 

The Fifth Commandment has already told us some- 
thing about the duties we owe to our parents. But it is 
not only in the Decalogue that those duties are enforced. 
In the 19th chapter of Leviticus, we find, ''Ye shall fear 
every man his mother and his father." In the 2 ist chap- 
ter of Exodus, death is ordained as the punishment of 
the child who strikes or who curses a parent; and in 
Deuteronomy we read, "Cursed be he that setteth 
light by his father or his mother." 

First and foremost among the duties that we owe to 
our fellow-creatures are those that we owe to our par- 
ents. These duties are impressed upon us strongly by 
nature; for without being taught them, every right- 
minded child fulfils them by intuition. The Bible, 
therefore, justly treats the wicked, irreverent son as an 
unnatural monster not worthy to live. The bad son is 
certain to be a bad man, and a bad citizen, in every 
relation of domestic and social life. He is a social 
pest, and is consequently worthy of death. In the 21st 
chapter of Deuteronomy, we read about the punishment 
incurred by the stubborn and rebellious son. The men of 
his city were to stone him to death. Throughout the Bible, 
and in our later records, there is no mention of capital 
punishment for the offence of a son against his parents ; 
so we may hope that there was never cause for such pun- 
ishment, and that the law, severe as it seems, was rather 
declared as a terror and a warning to those who might be 
apt to disregard the duties they owed to their parents. 



MORAL DUTIES. IIQ 

Closely connected with the laws as to filial duties is 
that which ordains respect to the aged, "Thou shalt rise 
up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old 
man, and fear thy God." For, one aspect of this law, 
as well as that relating to assaults on parents, must not 
be forgotten. It was a custom among many barbarous 
nations to slay old people who were overwhelmed with 
the infirmities of age ; and this act of murder was even 
committed by sons on their parents. 

Although such a custom is shocking to contemplate, 
it is, perhaps, no worse than might be expected from na- 
tions with whom brute force and physical strength were 
the only quaHties that were valued. The Mosaic code 
puts old age on a different basis. The aged are not to be 
regarded as mere encumbrances, burdening the world 
with their weaknesses. They are not to be cast aside 
when their work is over, and their power of work is 
spent. They are to be treated reverently and respect- 
fully; for though their strength of body may have de- 
parted, they have acquired knowledge and accumulated 
experience, as useful to the world as physical prowess. 
And this is the meaning of King Solomon, when he says, 
"The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in 
the way of righteousness." " The glory of young men is 
their strength, and the beauty of old men is the gray 
head." 

" Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself." 

The duty involved in this law is one that is included 
in almost every code of morality and in ahnost every re- 



I20 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

ligious system. There is a well-worn tale told of two 
learned and rival doctors of the Talmud, Hillel and 
Shammai, which bears upon this commandment, and 
indicates the importance attached to it by Judaism. A 
scoffing heathen appHed to Shammai, requesting him to 
teach him the laws of Judaism in the short space of time 
that he could stand on one foot. Shammai, in anger, 
sent the scoffer away. Thus repulsed, he went to Hillel, 
and made the same request of him. And Hillel repHed, 
" Do thou not unto another what thou wouldst not have 
another do unto thee. This is the whole law ; the rest is 
mere commentary." 

The precept, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self," is a protest against selfishness — the origin of every 
vice, and itself the greatest vice. If you love your neigh- 
bor as yourself, you will be just to him, you will not 
wrong him in any way, you will not hate, despise, or 
dishonor him; you will help him in misfortune, and 
you will judge him charitably. 

But, it might be argued, this law to love one's neigh- 
bor as one's self is a little unreasonable — nay, impossi- 
ble. How can any one love his neighbor as dearly as he 
loves himself? Self-love is deeply implanted in every 
human heart. How, then, can we be expected to love our 
neighbor as ourselves ? 

Your own happiness and welfare depend on the hap- 
piness and welfare of others. No king was ever happy 
whose subjects were unhappy. No head of a house- 
hold can be happy, if his family and servants are in a 
constant state of discord. No employer can be happy. 



MORAL DUTIES. 121 

if his work-people are discontented, sullen in their de- 
meanor, and perpetually at war with him. Thus the 
happiness of every individual depends on the happiness 
of those with whom he comes in daily contact. If, 
therefore, you truly love yourself, and prize your hap- 
piness, love your neighbor as much, and prize his hap- 
piness. No one can possibly be truly, permanently, and 
honorably happy at the expense of his fellow- creatures. 
Wealth, with its unequal distribution, will always cre- 
ate different social grades, and on some the burden of 
work will ever fall more heavily than on others. It does 
not follow that this burden of work entails unhappiness. 
On the contrary, those who have to work too hard are 
not more unhappy than those who lead a lazy, unprofit- 
able Hf e. Still, poverty has its undoubted evils ; and it 
is the duty of the rich to soften the hardships that afflict 
the poor. 

Unfortunately, in our artificial state of society, the 
relations of employer and employed are far from sat- 
isfactory, both frequently forgetting the command, 
''Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The mas- 
ter is frequently too exacting to his servant, the servant 
too careless of his employer's interests ; and hence arise 
those unhappy relations between employer and em- 
ployed, which have so often culminated in trade-dis- 
putes, outrages, and strikes. A selfish poHcy never 
thrives. There are in this country industries which have 
prospered mainly because masters and men have treated 
one another as fellow-workers with a common interest, 
each loving his neighbor as himself, seeking his wel- 



122 Israel's faith. 

fare, and looking for happiness in the happiness of his 
fellows. But there are other industries which have 
failed because masters and men have tried to make as 
much as possible out of each other, regardless of all con- 
siderations but their own selfish aims. 

Nor is it only in the conflict between labor and capi- 
tal that this primary law of morahty is so often forgot- 
ten. The disputes between individuals which find their 
way into the law-courts, and the disputes between na- 
tions which give rise to sanguinary wars, all have their 
origin in the neglect of this same law. The principles of 
right and wrong are sufficiently clear, so that no man 
need wrong his neighbor in ignorance. If he loved his 
neighbor as himself, he would not wrong him, and would 
no more think of damaging the interests of his neighbor 
than of endangering his own. 

But as regards nations, the law has greater force. 
War, that dread curse, which has converted many of the 
fairest gardens of the earth into cemeteries ; which has 
changed friends into fiends, human beings into brutes, 
and aroused passions which only the hand of death 
could subdue — war would have no existence, if every 
nation, instead of envying, despising, or hating, would 
love its neighbor as itself. Patriotism becomes the 
worst of vices when, forgetful of that duty, a nation 
wages a war of aggression against a neighbor whose 
land it covets. 

War is, in sober truth, a hideous thing; and so men 
strive to clothe its hideousness in decent garb. They 
hide the blood beneath the crimson uniform, and stifle 



MORAL DUTIES. 1 23 

the groans of wounded men with music. They drown 
the sobs and sighs of orphans and of widows with songs 
of victory, and call the murderous work of battle a work 
of glory. 

But, if the truth be told, war is at best but wholesale 
homicide, the aggressors but wholesale murderers; ag- 
gressive war, at best, but wholesale robbery ; the nation 
longing for its neighbor's lands, but wholesale plunder- 
ers and thieves. 

And of the wars waged or pretended to be waged for 
a principle of honor, none would exist if honor meant 
but honesty, and glory meant God's glory and not 
man's. His glory is to "make the whole world kin," to 
make this world a world of peace and happiness, to 
make man's Hfe "like days of heaven upon earth." 
Therefore He gave to man this law of love — "to love 
his neighbor as himself" — to widen the sphere of hu- 
man sympathies, to make the earth one nation, and all 
mankind fellow-citizens. 

Honesty and Truth. 

The duty of truthful, honest dealing is set forth in 
the Third and Eighth Commandments. It is repeated 
in Leviticus: "Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, 
neither lie one to another." "Thou shalt not defraud 
thy neighbor." "Just balances, just weights, a just 
ephah, a just hin, shall ye have." 

The arm of the law, in all civiHzed countries, pro- 
tects the weak against the strong, and prevents direct 



124 Israel's faith. 

robbery by the highwayman. But there is an indirect 
robbery which too often evades the law, and is unfortu- 
nately very prevalent in most commercial countries. 
To deal falsely, to misrepresent wares and merchandise 
to be what they are not, to lie to a purchaser as to the 
value or cost of a commodity, to give short weight, are 
all forms of commercial immoraHty which sap the foun- 
dations of society, and yet by some are regarded ahnost 
as matters of course and mere incidents of business. 
The evils engendered by such loose principles of dealing 
are incalculable. A general distrust and suspicion take 
the place of confidence. The purchaser is bound to 
waste his time in a vigilant examination of what he buys, 
lest he may be defrauded; and, notwithstanding his 
vigilance, he may yet be cheated. Goods have to be 
weighed and measured over and over again, lest, at 
some point of transfer or transit, something may have 
been abstracted. Nor must it be imagined that acts of 
dishonesty exist only among small traders. Recent ex- 
perience has shown that merchants of the highest repu- 
tation have been guilty of gigantic frauds; and when 
those frauds were discovered, their plea was simply that 
they were quite the usual thing, and that most people 
did as they did. 

Distrust, suspicion, and loss of time are not the only 
evils resulting from commercial dishonesty. Dishon- 
esty breeds dishonesty. The honest trader finds that he 
cannot compete successfully with the dishonest one, 
and becomes dishonest Hke his neighbor; and so the 
standard of morality becomes generally degraded. 



MORAL DUTIES. 125 

Many think this condition of things harmless, because 
every man of the world is prepared for it, and beheves 
nothing but the evidences of his senses. But, in truth, 
the results are very serious, and, most serious of all, not 
to the intended victim, but to the dishonest trader him- 
self. His notion of honor becomes vitiated and blunted. 
He acquires loose ideas regarding honesty and truth. 

But God has declared that "all that do such things 
and all that do unrighteously are an abomination unto 
the Lord thy God" ; and it is surely not difficult to im- 
agine that He, who is the Essence of Truth and Justice, 
must abominate those who steal, or deal falsely with, or 
he one to another. 

Truth is the basis of all moraHty. "A righteous man 
hateth lying," said King Solomon. He who adheres to 
truth will be righteous in all things. Nor must the 
truthfulness consist merely in abstaining from a direct 
He. Equivocation, flattery, misrepresentation, and du- 
pHcity are all forms of lying as hateful as the bold and 
direct lie, perhaps more so. " DeHver my soul from ly- 
ing lips and a deceitful tongue," is the prayer of King 
David. " Guard my tongue from evil, and my lips from 
uttering deceit," is our own thrice-repeated daily 
prayer. Truth is the guardian of the soul. If it retain 
truth, it will retain innocence; and contact with the 
world will leave it unharmed and unstained. 

"Who," asks King David, "shall ascend into the 
mountain of the Lord ? or who shall stand in His holy 
place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; 
who hath not Uf ted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn de- 



126 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

ceitfuUy; He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, 
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.'* 

Slander and False Report. 

"Thou shalt not raise a false report," applies not 
alone to individuals, but to things and circumstances. 
Great injury may be done by publishing false reports or 
rumors, though they be not intended to injure any one. 
The law just quoted is directed against exaggeration, 
misrepresentation of facts, and misstatement of events. 
The love of the marvellous is strongly implanted in the 
human mind. It is curious to notice how easily people 
believe what they are told; and the more marvellous a 
tale is, the more ready people are to beheve it. "It 
does no one any harm," is the common reply to the cen- 
sure of such false reports. But, both to the individual 
and to society, it does much harm, though the reputa- 
tion of the individual, who may be the subject of the 
report, may remain untouched. 

The Hes that have been told in the name of religion 
have been truly frightful in results. It is not too much 
to say that the true interests of religion have, in all ages, 
greatly suffered through the raising of reports of false 
miracles by the over-zealous priests of rehgions other 
than our own. "Truth, above everything," should be 
the motto of priest, preacher, and teacher. "As for 
Truth, it endureth and is always strong; it hveth and 
conquereth for evermore." The interests of religion are 
always identical with the interests of truth. The great 
God of Truth does not want a lie to be told in His ser- 



MORAL DUTIES. 1 27 

vice. He declares, ''The prophet which shall presume 
to speak a word in My name, which I have not com- 
manded him to speak . . . shall die." 

"Thou shalt not go up and down as a tale-bearer 
among thy people" is another and more direct law 
against slander. No matter if the tale be true, and your 
neighbor be worthy of blame, you are not to be a tale- 
bearer. However blameworthy he may be, the fact is 
no excuse for your hating him. "Thou shalt not hate 
thy brother in thy heart ; thou shalt in nowise rebuke 
thy neighbor, and suffer no sin to rest upon him." 
This law represents the true principle of religious char- 
ity, and is, at the same time, a caution to those self-right- 
eous people, who take delight in reviling their less re- 
ligious neighbors. Such people, who are "righteous 
overmuch," as King Solomon calls them, are directed 
to show their piety, not by looking down with super- 
cilious glance upon their less pious neighbors, but by 
remonstrating with them privately, and by gently win- 
ning them over to the path of virtue. 

Purity. 

"Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God." 
Though there are very many ordinances which relate 
to the subject of moral purity, this one comprehends all 
the rest. For it enjoins us to be modest, chaste, and 
pure; it bids husband and wife to be faithful to each 
other; it bids us to be decent in our conduct, demeanor, 
and conversation, and even in our thoughts, and so to 
"be perfect with the Lord." 



128 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

Forgiveness, 

Most difficult of all duties is the duty of forgiveness ; 
for forgiveness is not always within our control. Still 
God commands us: **Thou shalt not avenge nor bear 
any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord"; 
and a little consideration will show that forgiveness of 
an enemy is a duty that we owe equally to God, to our- 
selves, and to our fellow-creatures. 

The sooner an injury is forgotten, the better for our 
own peace of mind ; moreover, by forgiving others, we 
make ourselves worthy of forgiveness by the Almighty. 
"To the merciful, God will show Himself merciful." 

This is the highest charity, the greatest kindness of 
man to his fellow. To give ahns to the poor, to hdp the 
distressed, to be kind to the stranger, are all easy and 
pleasant duties ; but to love our enemy so far as to forego 
vengeance and bear him no grudge, is the highest form 
of virtue, because it is so much at variance with our 
strongest impulses. 

Kindness to Animals. 

God gave man " dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over 
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." 

Man was to have control over the animal creation, 
but he was to remember that all birds and beasts and 
creeping things were yet God's creatures, all ahke ob- 
jects of His loving care. 



MORAL DUTIES. 1 29 

Accordingly, when God gave us the Law, He im- 
pressed upon us the duty of kindness to animals. For 
seven days after birth, no animal was permitted to be 
taken away from its mother. If an animal had to be 
slaughtered, it might not be killed on the same day as 
one of its young, lest, perchance, the one might see the 
suffering of the other. An ox was not permitted to be 
muzzled while treading out the corn, lest it might be 
irritated at being prevented, in the presence of plenty, 
from satisfying its hunger. Nor was an ox permitted to 
be yoked with an ass at the plough, lest the pace or ten- 
sion of one animal might overtax the strength of the 
other. No animal might be worked on the Sabbath- 
day, so that even the poor dumb brute shared with man 
the blessing of rest. It was commanded that any one 
seeing an animal fall beneath its burden, must render 
help to raise it. Even ''if thou see the ass of him that 
hateth thee lying under his burden and wouldst forbear 
to help him, thou shalt surely help with him." It is pro- 
nounced to be a duty to lead back an animal that has 
strayed, even if it be owned by an enemy. 

During the wanderings of the Israelites in the wil- 
derness, all animals that were slaughtered for food had 
to be brought for that purpose to the door of the taber- 
nacle, and it was unlawful to slay an animal elsewhere. 
The blood of the slaughtered animal was sprinkled on 
the altar, and the fat was burnt. In this manner, the act 
of slaying an animal for food was dignified and pro- 
moted to a rehgious act, and there was no chance of any 
wanton cruelty. When the IsraeHtes reached the Prom- 
9 



I30 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

ised Land, this restriction was removed, and they were 
allowed to slay animals anywhere. 

The law, which thus first gave to the priests the prov- 
ince of slayers of the cattle, probably gave rise to the 
custom always prevalent among the Jews, even down 
to the present time, of appointing men of high reHgious 
characters as slaughterers of animals used for food. 
The best guarantee was thus afforded that the pre- 
scribed rules should be conscientiously observed, and 
also that the animal should be slain with the least pos- 
sible pain. 

The Jew, consequently, does not, as a rule, indulge 
in that kind of sport which consists of kiUing. He 
does not shoot pigeons, grouse, and pheasants for the 
mere pleasure of taking deadly aim at them. The 
animals he requires for food he has slain by the most 
expert, thus avoiding all needless torture. 

If we are asked why God made so many laws for the 
protection of animals from cruelty, we may reply that 
the laws enjoining kindness to dumb animals form only 
part of the great Law of Love which the Pentateuch in- 
culcates. If man be taught by these laws to be kind to 
dumb animals, will he not all the more be kind to his 
fellow-men? Will not he, who spares pain to his ox, 
spare pain also to his servant, and treat his dependents 
with kindness and with brotherly love ? 



CHAPTER IX. 



SANITARY LAWS. 



The laws relating to health are too numerous to men- 
tion in detail; and it will be sufficient to treat of them 
in broad outlines. 

The main principles of the laws of purification, as 
laid down in Leviticus and Numbers, appear to be that 
as infectious diseases are mostly communicated by con- 
tact, all cases of infection are to be isolated; that all 
contact with any centre of infection is to be avoided; 
that when such contact has been unavoidable, there 
must be, first, segregation, to prevent the spread of in- 
fection, and finally purification, before the infected 
person is re-admitted into society. 

Every corpse was considered a possible centre of in- 
fection. Hence, those who touched a corpse, or who 
were under the same roof with a corpse, or who touched 
a grave, had to purify themselves on the third day, and 
it was not till the seventh day that they were declared 
clean, after having again purified themselves, washed 
their clothes, and bathed themselves in water. 

In quite recent time, medical men have come to the 
conclusion that infectious diseases can be stamped out 
only by the most careful system of isolation. Neverthe- 
less, it will be seen that the sanitary laws of the Penta- 

131 



132 Israel's faith. 

teuch clearly enforce this principle, and point to isolation 
as the first duty incumbent on a patient suffering from 
communicable disease, or on a person bearing the 
germs, or even the possible germs, of infection ; and it 
is declared that he who "purifieth not himself, defileth 
the tabernacle of the Lord; and that soul shall be cut 
off from Israel." 

The great scourge of the East was, and in many 
places still is, leprosy; and in the thirteenth chapter of 
Leviticus will be found the most exact and stringent 
rules for the prevention of the spread of this malady by 
contagion or infection. Infected clothing was burned; 
an infected house had to be first emptied, the infected 
parts of the building removed, and the walls scraped. 
Then, if the infection proved chronic, the whole house 
had to be razed to the ground, and the materials re- 
moved to an unclean place, never to be used again. The 
priest acted as physician. It was he who had to declare 
the patient, the garment, or the house clean or unclean. 
Before the re-admission of the leper into society, certain 
sacrificial rites had to be performed; but, above all, cer- 
tain ablutions had to be made by the patient, and his 
hair had to be shaved off. 

In these times, when cleanHness is known to be an 
essential condition of health, it will not be a subject of 
surprise to find the washing of the clothes and the bath- 
ing of the flesh with water ordained as material acts of 
purification. If these simple remedies alone had been 
prescribed for the prevention of infection, they would 
doubtless have been disregarded and neglected; for 



SANITARY LAWS. 1 33 

there Is a tendency of the uneducated mind to respect a 
remedy of a complex, and to disregard one of a simple 
kind ; just as we find that Naaman doubted the efficacy 
of the seven simple ablutions in the Jordan, prescribed 
by Ehsha as a cure for his leprosy, because the cure 
was not accompanied by any incantation or ceremonial. 

But probably this was not the only reason why the 
ablutions were accompanied by priestly rites. It must 
be remembered that many diseases take their origin in 
intemperance, excess, and other infractions of the moral 
law. So it was a salutary act to bring the influences of 
rehgion to bear upon the patient, not only with the ob- 
ject of impressing upon him the need of an amended 
life, but of reminding him that, though God delegates 
His heaUng powers to man, the Great Physician is God 
Himself, to whom we owe Hfe and health and every 
blessing. 

The law for the disposal of refuse by burial in the 
earth is truly a remarkable one. The modern system 
which permits such matter to pollute our rivers, is now 
acknowledged to be a gigantic blunder; and the best 
authorities are now of opinion that, though storm-waters 
should be led into the rivers, sewage should be led 
into the earth, to enrich the soil, and reproduce the food 
whence it takes its origin. 

We have already referred to the law which declared 
unclean all who touched a corpse, or a grave, or who 
happened to be under the same roof with a corpse, and 
which required their purification before they could be 
re- admitted into society. But the law was much more 



134 ISRAELIS FAITH. 

stringent as regards the priests. These were not per- 
mitted to come near a corpse under any condition, ex- 
cept on the death of a near relative, namely, a parent, 
wife, child, brother, or unmarried sister; and, even in 
these exceptional circumstances, they had to be puri- 
fied, and to remain apart for seven days. 

The sanitary importance of this rule must be clear, 
seeing that in the East the diseases most prevalent are 
contagious ; that a corpse, which, in warm climates, de- 
composes rapidly, is a highly probable source of infec- 
tion; and that the priests, being also the physicians, if 
allowed to touch the dead, might communicate mortal 
disease from the dead to the Hving. 

Our people have always regarded their dead with the 
greatest veneration. The careful watching of the corpse 
from the moment of death till the funeral hour, the rev- 
erent ablution of the dead, the following of the remains 
to the grave with all marks of respect, regardless of the 
rank or station of the deceased, and the rule which as- 
signs to each corpse, even to that of a pauper, a separate 
grave as an everlasting possession — all these customs, 
indicating an affectionate tenderness for the dead, seem 
strangely at variance with those Mosaic laws which 
treat the human corpse as a thing defihng him that 
touches it. What, then, can be the object of these laws, 
apart from their sanitary purpose ? 

A glance at the history of certain ancient nations, and 
even at the customs of some religions of our own day, 
will furnish us with a reply. In ancient Egypt, the 
country where the Israelites had so long dwelt, the 



SANITARY LAWS. 1 35 

treatment of the dead was the great absorbing thought 
of the Hving. To build a grand tomb for himself was 
the first thought of every Egyptian. The greatest pains 
were taken to preserve the bodies of the dead. The 
more perishable parts were removed, and the body em- 
bahned, wrapped tightly in bands of Hnen to prevent 
the access of air; and the preservation of the body from 
decay was considered essential to the happiness of the 
departed soul. The chief books in the Egyptian htera- 
ture were those relating to the funeral ritual. Before 
the tombs of the Egyptians, altars were erected, and on 
these altars their relatives offered sacrifices. In times 
of difficulty or danger, they would consult the dead, and 
pray for their intervention, or for their advice. The 
privilege of burial was not allowed to all. Some were 
refused burial, and had to be kept forever by their fam- 
ihes, standing upright, in closed coffins, against a wall 
inside their houses, a lasting disgrace to their relatives. 
Poor people, who died in debt, were refused burial; 
and, at one time, a creditor could make his debtor give 
as security the mummy of his father. The City of the 
Dead was under the control of the priests of Egypt, who 
had high privileges, and possessed one-third of the 
land. Their influence over the people was enormous, 
chiefly derived from their power either to award honors 
or to offer indignities to the dead. 

Thus we see the evil resulting from the gigantic corpse- 
traffic, which became at last the aim and end of rehgion 
in Egypt. 

No wonder that Jacob, fearful that his body might 



136 Israel's faith. 

become an object of worship for future generations, ex- 
claimed as a last request to his son, "Bury me not, I 
pray thee, in Egypt;" or that Joseph, with Hke appre- 
hension, made the children of Israel swear that they 
would carry his remains from Egypt to Canaan. 

In our own days, there are superstitions as bad, and 
perhaps more mischievous. In the churches of Cath- 
olic countries will be found bones of so-called saints, 
who Hved centuries ago, reverently preserved as relics, 
and kept as objects of idolatry. Many of these are al- 
leged by the priests to be capable of working miraculous 
cures even now; and, as the priests hold aloft these hu- 
man rehcs — ^perhaps a fleshless skull, or perhaps a 
shrunken human hand, or perhaps only a single bone — 
with great pomp and ceremony, the assembled multi- 
tude bend the knee, and accord to these remains a wor- 
ship which should belong to the Supreme God alone. 

No wonder, then, that God should bid His people 
regard human remains and the graves of the dead as 
unclean. No wonder that He should forbid His priests 
even to go near a dead body. If the priests might not go 
near a corpse, how much less might they consult the 
dead, or offer a spurious worship at their tombs, or pre- 
sent sacrifices at their graves, or work pretended mira- 
cles with the fragment of a corpse ? 

One cannot but admire, with rapt wonder, the Divine 
foresight, whereby all graves were declared unholy and 
unclean, and whereby, when our great legislator, Moses, 
died, his burial was so arranged that ''no man knoweth 
of his sepulchre unto this day." 



SANITARY LAWS. 1 37 

Not upon the body, but on the spirit of the departed 
are we to bestow our thoughts; on their example and 
their influence ; on their worth and on their work. Let 
us think of them as spirits, rejoicing in the presence of 
their Maker, working His will in the better world, as 
they worked His will in this. 

The laws relating to food may be all classed under 
the head of sanitary laws; for they have been ordained 
in the interests of health, moral and physical. 

When God blessed Noah and his sons after the flood, 
He delivered into their hand the whole animal world, 
and told them, " Every moving thing that hveth shall be 
meat for you, even as the green herb, have I given you 
all things. But flesh with the Hfe thereof, which is the 
blood thereof, shall ye not eat." In those early days, 
there were no dietary restrictions but these two : — a Hv- 
ing animal might not be mutilated to afford food, and 
the blood of an animal might not be eaten. 

These laws were repeated by Moses, but with far 
greater detail and circumstance. We read in Leviticus, 
*' Moreover, ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it 
be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwelHngs. What- 
soever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even 
that soul shall be cut off from his people." With even 
greater stringency is the law repeated later: "Whatso- 
ever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the stran- 
gers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner 
of blood, I will even set my face against that soul that 
eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his peo- 



138 ISRAELIS FAITH. 

pie. For the life of the flesh is in the blood ; and I have 
given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for 
your souls ; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement 
for the soul. Therefore I said unto the children of Is- 
rael, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any 
stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood." In 
Deuteronomy the same injunction is repeated: "Only 
ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the 
earth as water." And further in the same chapter we 
are told, "Only be sure that thou eat not the blood, for 
the blood is the Ufe, and thou mayest not eat the life 
with the flesh. Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour 
it on the earth as water. Thou shalt not eat it, that it 
may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee." 

What can be the object of this prohibition, so fre- 
quently repeated? The Bible gives us as one reason 
that the blood was used upon the altar as an atonement 
sacrifice; but this cannot be the chief reason. 

The real reason must remain a mystery, until the 
great problem of Hfe is solved. We know nothing of the 
processes of vital action; but we know that the blood is 
the vehicle of Hfe to the animal frame — the circulating 
medium, maintaining vitaHty in every organ of the 
body, and feeding the brain, the fountain of thought 
and action. We know, from the influence of certain 
narcotics, that what passes into the blood after digestion, 
affects the brain; sometimes acting on the intellectual, 
and sometimes on the moral, qualities of man; some- 
times weakening and sometimes stimulating those 
powers. How the brain is acted upon, we know not; 



SANITARY LAWS. 1 39 

but we know enough to feel sure that what we eat and 
drink does affect the mental and spiritual part of man. 
What then is more probable than that, if the blood of 
a brute animal enters our frames, some of the quahties 
of that animal may become communicated to us through 
its blood, and that part of the nature of the animal may 
thus enter our nature, and debase and brutalize us ? 

Experience lends a strong probabihty to this view; 
and, if the view be correct, the precepts so strongly 
prohibiting blood are easily understood. 

Our traditional mode of slaughtering cattle, by cut- 
ting the throat, was evidently ordained for the purpose 
of draining from the body of the animal the greatest 
possible quantity of blood ; and the custom adopted in 
all Jewish households, of steeping meat in water for 
half an hour and keeping it afterward strev/n with salt 
for an hour before cooking it, has, doubtless, for its ob- 
ject, the extraction of any blood still remaining. 

When we further examine the laws prohibiting the 
use of certain animals for food, the leading principle of 
those laws seems to be that all animals which them- 
selves feed on blood, are pronounced unclean, and are 
prohibited. No quadruped might be eaten except such 
as had cloven feet, and also chewed the cud. Such ani- 
mals as had only one of these characteristics (such as 
the camel, the hare, and the swine), were regarded as 
unclean; their carcasses might not even be touched, 
much less might they be used for food. The law, lim- 
iting the eatable animals to the cloven-footed only, ex- 
cluded the whole range of camivora, or animals that 



140 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

eat flesh. Flesh-eating animals are, of necessity, blood- 
eating animals; so it is not difficult to see why they are 
prohibited. 

No fish might be eaten except such as had fins and 
scales. Twenty species of birds are also enumerated 
as unclean, and forbidden as food. All worms and 
creeping things, and all insects, with the few excep- 
tions enumerated, are also prohibited; and it is quite 
possible, although not absolutely capable of proof, that 
nearly all those prohibited animals are, in some degree, 
carnivorous, and consequently blood-eating. 

It would be impossible, with our present hmited 
knowledge, to assign a special sanitary reason for the 
prohibition of each one of these animals as food. We 
know but little of the habits of most animals, and we 
know absolutely nothing of their inner fife. But, inas- 
much as all the prohibited animals are described as un- 
clean, there must doubtless be something in their struc- 
ture and habits rendering them unwholesome as objects 
of human food. The filthy habits of the swine, and the 
shocking diseases to which it is Hable, and which it en- 
genders in those who feed on it, are very well known; 
and in modern times it has been thoroughly recognized 
by medical men that swine's flesh is unwholesome food, 
even if the animal itself may have been healthy when 
slain. Swine will eat any garbage, however decom- 
posed, and they have even been known to devour their 
own young. The forbidden birds include several which 
are known to live on carrion of the filthiest kind, and to 
delight in blood. The Law wisely describes them as 



SANITARY LAWS. 141 

abominations, not even to be touched, when dead, much 
less eaten. 

Certain kinds of fat, specified by tradition, and in- 
cluding the particular fat used for sacrifice, were for- 
bidden to be eaten ; as was also the flesh of any animal 
that was accidentally wounded, or that died of disease. 
This last precept has given rise to the excellent tradi- 
tional practice among the Jewish people, that all ani- 
mals slain for food must be examined by skilled 
persons, \\ith the object of ascertaining whether the 
animal was free from disease. In case of disease being 
discovered, the animal is pronounced unfit for food 
(t'rejah). 

The law also forbids us to "seethe a kid in its moth- 
er's milk." The word gedi, translated "kid," here 
means the young of any mammal. The command 
seems, at first sight, a strange one ; and its meaning has 
been questioned by many learned men. The great Mai- 
monides (himself a physician of eminence) considers 
the prohibition to be solely a sanitary one, as he regards 
the mixture of flesh and milk too indigestible a food; 
but the more probable reason is that there is something 
cruel and repugnant to natural sentiment in boiHng a 
young animal in the milk that was destined for its own 
nourishment ; and there is an analogy between this pre- 
cept and that which forbade the killing of any animal 
and its progeny on the same day. 

It is certain that the Jews have always abstained 
from such an unnatural mixture of food. 

Apart from sanitary considerations, there is the moral 



142 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

influence which such laws exercise, by reason of the re- 
straints which they place on our appetites. That the 
Jews are distinguished for temperance, is universally 
acknowledged. As convivial in their habits as any of 
their fellow- citizens, our people are yet moderate in 
their enjoyments; and drunkenness finds no place 
among the vices of the Jews. For this immunity from 
intemperance, and from many of those diseases which 
affect other races, we are indebted to the dietary laws, 
which, while they permit us to enjoy, in moderation, the 
good things of life, place a curb on our appetites, so as to 
foster in us the quality of self-restraint. 



CHAPTER X. 

FASTS AND FEASTS. 

Every nation that has a history has certain anniver- 
saries which are marked as red-letter days in its calen- 
dar. But most nations wilHngly or wilfully forget their 
past misfortunes; their self-love and vanity prompting 
them to hold in remembrance only their glories. 

With us, it is different. Not taht our self-love and 
vanity are less than our neighbors'. But our history is 
different. For since we lost the land of our inheritance, 
our history as been, with few and comparatively short 
exceptions, one long tale of persecution and humiHa- 
tion. 

But now, thanks to God, we Jews, in this great 
country, and in most parts of the civiUzed world, Hve in 
peace and Hberty, our Hves and property secure, and we 
begin to regard our past sad history ahnost as a fright- 
ful nightmare, scarcely a series of real facts. 

It has been the custom of our people, as each anni- 
versary came round, to praise God for good and evil 
ahke, to celebrate our past glories with heartfelt grati- 
tude, and to call to mind our past sufferings with lamen- 
tations, but also with thanksgiving. For, in darkness or 
in Ught, in sorrow or in joy, the Jew still felt himself the 
surviving heir to a precious heritage, and, confident in 

i43 



144 

the future of his race, was grateful to transmit to un- 
born generations that heritage, in all its purity. 

Four of these sad anniversaries are not only histor- 
ical, but bibhcal. They are mentioned as fasts in the 
Book of Zechariah — the 17th day of Tamuz, the 9th 
day of Abf the 3d day of Tishri, and the loth day of 
Tebeth. 

The fast of Tamuz commemorates the taking of Jeru- 
salem by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon; the fast 
of Ab — the saddest anniversary of all — the destruction 
of the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, and the de- 
struction of the Second Temple by Titus, the Roman 
General. The fast of GedaHah on the 3d day of Tishri 
is the anniversary of the murder of Gedaliah, chief of 
the remnant of our people, who clung to Judea after the 
destruction of the First Temple. From that date, the 
independence of the Jews ceased, until the restoration 
in the days of Cyrus. The fast of Tebeth commemo- 
rates the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem by 
Nebuchadnezzar. 

Reading these dry details, which seem a mere cata- 
logue of misfortunes, it is difficult to reahze their full 
import. But the narrative of the destruction of the 
First Temple, as detailed in the last chapter of the sec- 
ond book of Kings, and in the last chapter of the second 
Book of Chronicles, and the history of the siege of Je- 
rusalem by Titus, as described by Josephus, set forth 
vividly the horrors attending these national calamities, 
when the city was consumed with famine, so that "there 
was no bread for the people of the land;" when the be- 



FASTS AND FEASTS. 145 

siegers ruthlessly slew every one in the fated city, ''and 
had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old 
man, or him that stooped for age." 

Never in the world's history has such a siege taken 
place as that which finally overthrew the sacred city; 
never has a city been so completely destroyed as was 
Jerusalem — destroyed so that scarcely a vestige of its 
ancient glory now remains, save a few huge pieces of 
masonry, the foundations of its outer walls, and some 
underground vaults, cisterns, and aqueducts, beneath 
or near the site of the sacred Temple- enclosure. 

Perhaps human nature is so constituted that we may 
find it hard to lament the loss of what we, personally, 
never possessed, and thus many thoughtless people 
may smile when they are told to mourn for the loss of 
Jerusalem. But when we read in the Bible and in 
works of history what Jerusalem was ; and call to mind 
that that Temple was the place on all the earth chosen 
by God as His Holy House, the rehgious centre of the 
chosen people, and that, instead of that glorious heri- 
tage, we have nothing left to us but the Written Word 
— no land of our own, no Temple of our own, no House 
of God, where the Jew can worship the One and only 
God — then, perhaps, if we are fervent Jews, we may 
realize what we have lost. 

Still our past history is not all gloom. Our history is, 
indeed, a history of persecutions, but it is also a history 
full of providential escapes. Two of these marvellous 
escapes from dangers, which might have utterly exter- 
minated us, but for the protecting hand of Providence, 



146 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

we celebrate by festivals of joy and gladness — the feast 
of Purim, and the feast of Hanucah. 

Who can read the Book of Esther without discern- 
ing, in the wonderful chain of events therein related, 
the guiding hand of an all-directing Providence ? 

When, therefore, we celebrate the Feast of Purim, as 
our forefathers did in Shushan, "with light and glad- 
ness, and joy and honor," we must keep foremost in our 
minds the recognition of God's government of the world; 
and when we read, in the Book of Esther, how a de- 
spised Jew and Jewess became, by rare acts of courage 
and self-devotion, the saviours of their nation, and 
placed on record an imperishable memorial of their 
marvellous escape; and how, finally, the Jew Morde- 
cai, raised to the post of first minister to the king of one 
hundred and twenty-seven provinces, yet remained 
steadfast to his faith and race, we must, indeed, ack- 
nowledge that it was the hand of the Lord of Hosts that 
had wrought these things. 

The events that gave rise to Hanucah, the Feast of 
Dedication, are described in detail in the Books of the 
Maccabees, in the Apocrypha. About the facts con- 
tained in the Books of the Maccabees there can be no 
doubt, as they receive ample confirmation from other 
historical sources. 

About two centuries before the Romans destroyed 
the Second Temple, Judea was ravaged by the army of 
Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria, who penetrated 
to Jerusalem, and even took possession of the sanc- 
tuary. Resistance seemed useless. The priests fled 



FASTS AND FEASTS. 147 

from the Temple, and the Syrians there set up their 
idolatrous worship, with all its abominations. They 
then tried to convert the Jews to their own degrading 
religion. The ordinances of Judaism were proscribed, 
the worship of God was forbidden, and all were ordered, 
upon pain of death, to bow down before the idols of the 
Syrians. Thousands of Jews died the death of martyrs, 
because they persisted in cUnging to their own religion. 
Many, weakened by privations and torture, became, or 
pretended to become, converts to heathenism, and 
many fled to distant parts of Judea, taking refuge in the 
mountain caverns. 

All seemed hopeless, and it appeared as if Jews and 
Judaism were about to vanish forever from the face of 
the earth, when suddenly there arose a family of priests, 
who took upon themselves the apparently impossible 
task of resisting the idolatrous invaders. These he- 
roes, consisting of an old man named Mattathias and 
his five sons, were the Maccabees, or Hasmoneans ; and 
they commenced their work of salvation for Israel by 
bidding defiance to the Syrians, when they invaded 
Modin, their village home. For at Modin the invaders 
had set up altars for the worship of their idols, and 
these the Maccabees, jealous for the True God, indig- 
nantly swept away. 

The Syrians, accustomed everywhere to receive sub- 
mission, were amazed at this boldness and tried to 
bribe Mattathias and his sons, by promises of honors 
and riches, to yield to the king's commands, and to em- 
brace the idolatrous religion. But the Maccabees in- 



148 Israel's faith. 

dignantly refused ; and, rallying around them a handful 
of villagers, whom they had inspired with a patriotism 
and religious fervor like their own, they engaged in 
battle with the hosts of Syria, and, though largely out- 
numbered, conquered. 

No sooner had they gained their first victory, than the 
Maccabees reestabhshed the worship of the True God, 
and then proceeded to organize a small army with 
which to Hberate their country. But the old priest, 
Mattathias, did not Hve to see the end of the conflict. 
He died, leaving his sons to continue the task he had 
commenced, and inciting them, by his last words, to the 
work of regenerating and reviving the nation and the 
religion he loved so well. The sons fought like Hons. 
Everywhere the little handful of Jewish patriots con- 
quered. Legion after legion of the Syrians, led by the 
most renowned generals of King Antiochus, fell in bat- 
tle, struck down by the small band of Maccabee sol- 
diers. Nothing could withstand the prowess of these 
Jewish heroes ; and, after a succession of victories, un- 
broken by a single reverse, they marched to Jerusalem, 
determined to crown their glories by rescuing the Holy 
City from the pagan hands that had desecrated the 
sanctuary. Here again they were victorious: for they 
drove out the Syrians from Jerusalem, once more re- 
gained possession of the Sacred Temple; and the rem- 
nants of the hosts of Antiochus gradually retired from 
Palestine. 

Then, the soldier's work over, the priests' work, the 
purification of the desecrated Temple, began. Every 



FASTS AND FEASTS. 149 

vestige of the idolatrous worship was removed; new 
altars were built, new holy vessels were set up, the 
lights on the sacred candlestick were once more kindled, 
and the ancient worship of the Most High was reestab- 
lished. Then was celebrated the first "Feast of Dedi- 
cation," with great rejoicing. It lasted eight days; and 
it was ordained that, forever after, the Jews should 
celebrate as a festival this wonderful escape and the 
religious revival that followed it. 

How it is celebrated, is well known. For eight nights 
we illumine our homes with festive Hghts ; commencing 
with one, and adding one daily till eight lights are 
reached. When these lights are kindled, joyful hymns 
of thanksgiving are sung to celebrate the salvation of 
Israel by the Maccabees. 

The lesson taught by Hanucah is similar to that 
taught by Purim — the recognition of the Hand of God 
in human history and human destiny. One can well 
imagine the worldly-wise of the Maccabee age laughing 
at the temerity of Judas and his brothers, when they, 
with their handful of villagers, ill-clad, unpractised in 
the arts of war, and deficient in the implements of bat- 
tle, went to fight the hosts of Syrian soldiers; just as 
Goliath laughed at the striphng David, and just as, in 
our own time, the worldly-wise of many nations pre- 
dicted failure to the small band of ItaHan patriots, who 
undertook the Hberation of their country. 

And thus, this wonderful episode of our deliverance 
from the Syrian yoke shows us how Providence selects 
as instruments, not always the powerful and strong, but 



150 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

sometimes even the weakest, humblest, and poorest, to 
work His will. To regenerate an expiring nation, to 
revive the fast-dying embers of a glorious religion, and 
to restore its influence, He selects the poor, weak, old 
priest, and his five sons — inhabitants of an obscure 
village of Palestine. These were to be the saviours of 
their people. These were to inspire their followers with 
the courage of lions to meet and conquer an enemy- 
many times stronger than they. These were to rekindle 
the fire of rehgious zeal among their fellow- Jews. These 
were to drive out the idolater and to restore the true 
rehgion. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my 
spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE FUTURE LIFE. 

To every one, even to those on the brink of the grave, 
life has many interests; and the present moment is of 
paramount importance. When God made man of the 
dust of the earth, He meant him to have earthly inter- 
ests, so that he might fulfil his mission as part of the 
work of creation. If all men were to pass their hves 
like monks, spending all their time in penance, prayer, 
and contemplation, neglectful of their duties as mem- 
bers of the human family, there would soon be an end 
to the human race. 

Happily for man, God has so constituted the human 
mind that the prevailing thought of life is life itself — 
Hfe here on earth, with its needs, its duties, and its en- 
joyments. 

But, deeply implanted as is the love of Hfe in every 
healthy human heart, it is not more deeply implanted 
than the hope and expectation of a future state. It is a 
thought that crops up very frequently and persistently 
in every thinking mind ; and no religious person should 
suffer the days to depart without bestowing more than 
a passing thought on the future of his soul. 

What does Religion tell us about the immortality of 
the soul ? 

151 



152 Israel's faith. 

The Pentateuch tells us enough to show that Moses 
must have been well versed in the doctrine, and that the 
silence of the early books of the Pentateuch upon the 
topic was due only to the fact that the doctrine was 
thoroughly established. Indeed, if one reads any work 
treating of ancient Egypt, it is clear that, at the time of 
the Exodus, and even long before, the doctrine of a fu- 
ture state was known to the Egyptians, and played no 
small part in the inner and domestic life of that nation. 
It is, therefore, absolutely impossible that Moses, who 
was trained at the court of Pharaoh, could have been, as 
some have maintained, ignorant of the idea of the im- 
mortahty of the soul. 

But, it may be argued. Why did not God, through 
His servant Moses, clearly and distinctly propound the 
important doctrine of ImmortaHty, promising undying 
happiness in a future existence as a reward of piety, and 
giving indications of the nature of those spiritual re- 
wards, instead of promising long life and wealth, and 
all worldly blessings as the recompense of virtue ? 

Truly a difficult question. But we may probably 
find a solution of the problem by imagining a converse 
state of things. 

Suppose that the Bible told us, without the slightest 
ambiguity, that there was an after-life, that the soul 
was an immortal part of man, which, released from 
its earthly bonds, would enjoy happiness, or be doomed 
to misery in accordance with its deserts. What would 
be the result ? 

In the first place, not a single disinterested action 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 1 53 

would be left to be performed, even by the best of 
men. Every prudent man would calculate the effect of 
each good deed he performed, or of each temptation he 
resisted, and would, as it were, keep a debit and credit 
account with his Creator. Even as it is, there is not too 
much disinterestedness in the world. Intertwined with 
patriotism, we see ambition ; intermixed with honesty, 
we find poUcy — the fear of the law; interwoven with 
religion, we often find submission to fashion. The ster- 
ling good deed, the act of duty, which is contrary to in- 
terest, to sentiment, to impulse, to fashion, and to in- 
chnation — this is the act which deserves eternal reward. 
But what act would be disinterested, if the promise of 
heavenly reward were unmistakably clear and dis- 
tinct? The cool, calculating man would be the best 
man. But he would not be a good man in the sense in 
which we now understand the term. He would be com- 
mercially good; his good deeds would simply be good 
investments — investments of which the profit, though 
deferred, was certain — not only certain, but, when at- 
tained, eternal. 

But there would be no merit in this kind of goodness. 
The object for which it would seem we are placed upon 
earth, would be annulled. This world would be no test, 
no place of trial, to ascertain our worth. It might be a 
test of our sordid prudence — not of our moral worth. 
The aim and object of our existence in this world would 
be frustrated. 

Next, let us ask what end would have been served 
by a direct promise of immortality ? It would not have 



IS4 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

sufficed to have merely given the promise of a state of 
being which the mind cannot fully grasp. The mere 
promise of eternal happiness would have been to the 
majority the promise of a phrase — a mere vision — not 
a tangible, comprehensible reward. We could not ap- 
preciate a promise of pleasures which belong wholly and 
solely to a spiritual state of existence. But we can un- 
derstand the pleasures of earth, because they are pleas- 
ures experienced by the agency of the senses. Every one 
can appreciate such pleasures; and therefore it is that 
we find, in the Bible, material blessings held out as the 
recompense of well-doing. 

Our ancestors, just delivered from the slavery of 
Egypt, were not a people with strong spiritual cravings. 
The Bible represents them, while yet living amid mira- 
cles, as lamenting the flesh-pots of Egypt, looking back 
with fond regret to the time when they *" did eat bread 
to the full," calling to mind, with greedy thoughts, ^' the 
fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, 
and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the 
garHc." Men such as these would not have been at- 
tracted by promises of a spiritual happiness, long de- 
ferred. A different incentive had to be offered. They 
were, therefore, promised rich harvests and over- 
flowing granaries, length of days and the blessing of 
children. 

But, though the Pentateuch contains unmistakable 
hints as to the immortality of the soul, the later Scrip- 
tures contain much more than hints; sufficiently show- 
ing that the doctrine was not first learned in the Baby- 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 1 55 

Ionian exile, but that it was accepted, if not by the 
masses, at least by cultivated minds. 

King David; in many of his psalms, uses expressions 
which show that to him the Soul's Immortahty was no 
unfamihar doctrine. In that beautiful psalm which is 
read in houses of mourning, he says, "My heart is glad 
and my glory rejoiceth ; my flesh also shall rest in hope. 
For Thou wilt not leave my soul in the grave, neither 
wilt Thou suffer Thine holy one to see corruption. Thou 
wilt show me the path of life; in Thy presence is ful- 
ness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for 
evermore." 

Again, in the 17th Psalm, called the "Prayer of Da- 
vid," after speaking with disdain of the prosperity of 
"men of the world which have their portion in this Hfe," 
he closes with the words, "As for me, I v^ll behold thy 
face by righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I 
awake, with thy Hkeness." 

In the 49th Psakn, which contains so powerful a 
homily on the vanity of wealth and fortune, the Psakn- 
ist thus declares his belief in a future state: " But God 
shall redeem my soul from the power of the grave; 
for He shall receive me." 

The last chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes contains 
the most pointed reference to the doctrine of the Soul's 
Immortality in the well-known words, "Then shall the 
dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall 
return unto God who gave it." 

With such expressions as these in Holy Writ, who 
can assert that the doctrine of Immortahty was un- 



156 ISRAEL'S FAITH. 

known to the ancient Hebrews, and that the Jews, at 
quite a late period of their history, derived their knowl- 
edge of that doctrine from heathen and Christian 
sources ? The doctrine must have been not only known 
to our people in primeval times, but must have been so 
far recognized as a self-evident fact, and so far inter- 
woven in their natural behef, as to have required no en- 
forcement by the authority of Divine Revelation. 

And who can talk of annihilation of the soul, espe- 
cially in these days, when philosophers declare even 
matter to be indestructible, and force, by the conserva- 
tion of energy, to be eternal in its effects. Shall physi- 
cal force be everlasting, and the Soul which, by the 
power of Will, gives life to force, itself lack immor- 
tality ? It cannot be. 

The Rabbis tell us that when the Supreme Being, 
asked by Moses to show him His glory, caused all His 
goodness to pass before him, He opened to his aston- 
ished gaze the treasure-houses of Heaven, pointing out 
to him, one after the other, the rewards in store for the 
righteous; but that when at length He exposed to view 
one treasure-house larger than all the rest, piled up 
with precious things beyond number, and Moses, in 
rapt astonishment, exclaimed, " Lord, what is this great 
storehouse?" God answered him, "This is the store- 
house of happiness for those who have no merit of their 
own." 

Such is the Jewish view of God's mercy to the un- 
deserving. And surely it is no extravagant idea, when 
we call to mind man's career on earth. He enters the 



I 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 157 

world helpless and naked. Loving hands receive him, 
tend him, clothe him, and feed him ; loving hearts edu- 
cate him; and however great the struggle of Hfe, there 
is evidence, at every step and stage, of a Providence that 
guides him, unworthy though he be. Unworthy, in- 
deed; for since none are free from sin, if God were a 
vindictive Being as some religions would represent 
Him, even the best of us would be struck dead long be- 
fore we attained manhood. But He has no vindictive- 
ness. He has declared that His ways are not as our 
ways; that, as the heavens are higher than the earth, 
His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts 
higher than our thoughts. And He has declared Himself 
"merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant 
in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, 
forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin." Surely He, 
who provided gentle hands and hearts to receive us on 
entering this world, will provide a loving welcome for 
the soul, released from its earthly habitation, whether 
it be the soul of the sinner, trembling for its future, or 
the soul of the pious, yearning for that perfection which 
the earth forbade. 

And so when the time will come — as come it must to 
all — when death approaches, though the parting from 
loved ones may be with tears, and the severance of 
earthly ties may be with lamentations, yet let there be 
no fear in the soul, as it enters the presence of its 
Maker; for, merited or not, the loving mercy of God 
is the sure passport of every soul to heaven and happi- 
ness. 



158 ISRAEL'S FAITH 

And yet the good will have the reward of their good- 
ness; and yet the wicked will be requited for their 
wickedness; for God will by no means wholly clear the 
guilty. Man cannot be saved from the natural conse- 
quences of his sin. Of the reward in a future state we 
know nothing here; and still we may, perhaps, gain 
some shght foretaste of its nature from the sense of 
spiritual deUght we experience after the performance 
of a truly good, unselfish act, involving heavy sacrifice. 
Of the punishment in a future state we can know noth- 
ing here; and still we may, perhaps, have some sHght 
foreshadowing of its nature from the sense of remorse 
which follows the commission of a sin. Just as the 
grown man looks back on the foibles of his childhood 
and youth with, contempt, and perhaps disgust, so may 
we well imagine the soul, released from its earthly hab- 
itation, burdened with remorse at its sins, until God 
shall have purified it from its earthly stains. 

And as to the shares and proportions of reward meted 
out to each, though there will be Heaven for all, im- 
mortahty for all, happiness for all, through the bound- 
less mercy of God, the happiness will, perhaps, be 
greater or less, not according to the measure in which it 
is bestowed, but according to the measure in which it is 
deserved. 

For it is the unselfish, disinterested work that is truly 
satisfying to God — the labor done without hope of 
profit, fame, or reward, the work wrought for the glory 
of God and the good of man. 



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